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Sports Medicine:
Conditions

Cartilage Damage

Cartilage is a tough, flexible tissue found throughout the body. Cartilage serves two main functions:

  • It acts as a shock absorber
  • It acts as a mold

Cartilage covers the surface of joints, enabling bones to slide over one another while reducing friction and preventing damage. It helps to support your weight when you move, bend, stretch and run. Cartilage does not have its own blood supply. Blood cells help to repair damaged tissue, therefore damaged cartilage does not heal as quickly as damaged skin or muscles. Emory Sports Medicine offers several effective techniques for repairing damaged cartilage, including:

Emory Sports Medicine offers several effective techniques for repairing damaged cartilage, including:

Arthroscopic Lavage and Debridement

A treatment for less serious cartilage damage, arthroscopic lavage removes small areas of damaged cartilage in order to reduce pain and restore range of motion.

Microfracture Surgery

In microfracture surgery, small holes are drilled through damaged cartilage and into the underlying bone, creating blood clots. As the blood clots heal, new fibrocartilage forms.

Autograft Plugs and Autologous Osteochondral Grafts

In this procedure, plugs of healthy bone and cartilage are removed from low-stress areas of the joint and used to replaced damaged cartilage in high stress areas.

Cartilage Repair via Cartilage Transplant

Emory is currently studying the effects of a new treatment for damaged cartilage, cartilage transplant. Cartilage transplantation repairs damaged cartilage with replacement juvenile cartilage. Cartilage replacement is conducted by using a mix of donated cartilage and fibren glue (a common medium for biological repairs) formed into a patch of the appropriate size and shape, which is then inserted into the damaged area. The mixture knits with the surrounding cartilage, stays in place, and forms new, healthy cartilage.

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