Nose cartilage used to carry out successful knee repairs

Nose cartilage has been successfully used as a means of repairing injured knees for the first time. A team from the University of Basel has utilised this cutting-edge technique to treat a group of ten patients, with the positive outcomes they have enjoyed demonstrating the benefits this method could provide for knee surgery patients in future. How the technique works As described in The Lancet, this new method works by harvesting cartilage cells from individual patients' nasal septums, or the wall down the middle of the nose. These cells have the unique capacity to grow and form new cartilage tissue. A small sample of cells measuring six mm was removed and exposed to growth hormones for two weeks, before being placed in a membrane of collagen and cultured for an additional fortnight. This graft was cut into the right shape for each patient on a case-by-case basis. These grafts were then used to replace damaged cartilage surgically removed from the knees of ten patients aged 18 to 55 whose articular knee cartilage had been damaged through injury. The potential benefits Two years after the procedure, MRI scans showed that new tissue had developed that functioned similarly to normal knee cartilage. Nine of the ten patients reported reducedpain and improvements in the use of their knee, with the final patient excluded from the analysis after sustaining several new sports-related injuries. This procedure could be beneficial to the current approach of taking cartilage cells fro...

Source: Arthritis Research UK - October 20, 2016 Category: Rheumatology Source Type: news