Articular cartilage injury is prevalent in football players and results from chronic joint stress or acute traumatic injuries. Articular cartilage injury can often result in progressive painful impairment of joint function and limit sports participation. Management of articular cartilage injury in athletes aims to return the player to competition, and requires effective and durable joint surfac...

Human articular cartilage samples were retrieved from the resected material of patients undergoing total knee replacement. Samples underwent automated controlled freezing at various stages of preparation: as intact articular cartilage discs, as minced articular cartilage, and as chondrocytes immediately after enzymatic isolation from fresh articular cartilage. Cell viability was examined using ...

The articular cartilage, which lines the joints of the limb skeleton, is distinct from the adjoining transient cartilage, and yet, it differentiates as a unique population within a contiguous cartilage element. Current literature suggests that articular cartilage and transient cartilage originate from different cell populations. Using a combination of lineage tracing and pulse-chase of actively...

Hyaline cartilage development is essential in pediatric musculoskeletal growth. Although in an adult patient, we focus solely on the articular cartilage, in the pediatric population, the articular, epiphysial and physial cartilage play an important role in skeletal maturation. The epiphysial and physial cartilage participate in enchondral ossification and contribute to a child’s longitudinal gr...

In 1743, Hunter11 described ulcerations of articular cartilage as problems that will not heal. The clinical consequences of articular cartilage knee defects are pain, swelling, mechanical symptoms, athletic and functional disability, and osteoarthritis (Figure 1). Full-thickness articular cartilage defects have a poor capacity to heal. The challenge to restore the articular cartilage surface is...

To examine the role of connective tissue growth factor CCN2/CTGF (CCN2) in the maintenance of the articular cartilaginous phenotype, we analyzed knee joints from aging transgenic mice (TG) overexpressing CCN2 driven by the Col2a1 promoter. Knee joints from 3-, 14-, 40-, and 60-day-old and 5-, 12-, 18-, 21-, and 24-month-old littermates were analyzed. Ccn2-LacZ transgene expression in articular ...

Focal arthritic defects in the knee lead to pain, swelling, and dysfunction. Treatment of the defects has included drilling, abrasion, and grafting. This report describes our surgical technique of autogenous articular cartilage grafting of aLrthritic and traumatic articular cartilage lesions. Articular cartilage grafting can be performed as a single arthroscopic outpatient procedure. The mixtur...

OBJECTIVE To explore the different influences of walking, running and stair activity on knee articular cartilage with T1 rho and T2 mapping sequences. MATERIALS AND METHODS MRI (3.0-T) scans of the right knee were performed in twenty-three young healthy adults immediately after 30 minutes of rest, walking, running and stair activity respectively. Articular cartilage was quantitatively assesse...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to review the current understanding of the MRI appearance of articular cartilage and its relationship to the microscopic and macroscopic structure of articular cartilage, the optimal pulse sequences to be used in imaging, the appearance of both degenerative and traumatic chondral lesions, the appearance of the most common cartilage repair procedures, and...