Current concepts in articular cartilage repair

Articular cartilage is a specialized connective tissue covering vrious joint surfaces. Due to its poor repair potential and no nerve supply early injuries can be easily missed. Articular cartilage injury poses a challenge to treating orthopaedic surgeons and with various treatment options available it becomes difficult to treat due to the limited self-healing capacity, affliction of a young active patient and risk of progression to secondary osteoarthritis. There is no universally accepted successful treatment for these lesions. The ideal treatment should provide good repair fill with hyaline cartilage and maintain quality of subchondral bone. There is an increasing need for high quality studies to evaluate and compare outcomes between different techniques currently available. This article discusses articular cartilage injury and the various treatment options available to the treating surgeon along with the future upcoming treatment options.