Treatment of focal articular cartilage lesions of the knee with autogenous osteochondral grafts. A 2- to 4-year follow-up study

A retrospective study of 15 patients with 16 knees who underwent osteochondral autografts for focal full thickness articular cartilage defects of the knee with 2- to 4-year follow-up showed 80% good or excellent clinical results. There was no correlation of the clinical results with the underlying diagnoses, including osteonecrosis, osteochondritis dessicans and traumatic cartilage defect, or a size of the lesion smaller than 600 mm². However, cartilage lesions larger than 600 mm² were associated with increasing fibrous tissue formation and fissuring between the grafts and the host tissues and poor results. The improvement in symptoms appeared time-dependent, ranging from 6 to 16 weeks, suggesting that postoperative protection of the graft is warranted. There was no radiographic progression of degenerative changes of the knee on the medium-term follow-up. Therefore, an autogenous osteochondral graft is considered a good method in the treatment of knees with moderately sized articular cartilage defects.