re: Knee Replacement seems OVER THE TOP for reduced cartilage...

quote:

---

Can someone please invent the cartilage substitute?

---

Well, they can actually do some cartilage movement and microfracture surgery kind of forms a scaffold for that. Problem is - you get the wrong kind of cartilage - you get fibrous which just wears right off.

You're thinking brake pad, which is the wrong mental model - it's more like lubricant - hyaline cartilage (the good stuff) while technically "solid" tissue, is super slick, like a good lubricant (or engine coating if you want a more direct analogy) and that is what is extraordinarily difficult to replace once gone.

I've been watching with some interest (my left knee has been going out for about 5 years - I've tried not to baby it, but I avoid doing too much extra damage to it - I'm still young) - the progress of a product by an Israeli company - it's a biphasic implant that is installed via a form of microfracture surgery - it's organic coral based, and it encourages bone growth underneath and hyaline cartilage growth over the top, with or without lesions, with or without bone loss. It's slowly but surely making it's way through U.S. trials.

Cartiheal's amazing Agili-C

I might be able to run again some day.