Cartilage Injury and Repair

Abstract

Cartilage injury is still a major challenge that is waiting to be solved urgently in the field of orthopedic surgery because of the fact that articular cartilage has only a limited capacity for intrinsic healing. Without effective clinical intervention, cartilage injury could lead to the development of posttraumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA), which brings a tremendous economic and medical burden to the society. To address this issue, several strategies already applied in clinics to treat cartilage injury and defects. However, these strategies still need to evolve along with a better and broader understanding of cartilage injury. In this chapter, we first introduced some basic information of articular cartilage injury, and then we reviewed clinical strategies of cartilage injury and defects. Finally, we discussed some advanced techniques that possess great potential for treating cartilage injury in the future, such as bioactive materials for cartilage regeneration, gene editing tissue engineering, platelet-rich plasma (PRP), etc. Some of these methods have progressed into preclinical trials in the treatment of cartilage injury, and more therapies in this field are still thriving to be developed.