Treatment of Full-thickness Articular Cartilage Defects in the Knee of Patients With Autologous Bone-marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Scaffold

Articular cartilage defects have a weak potential for self-repair because of the reduced mitotic capacity of chondrocytes in vivo. Because some patients with articular cartilage defects may progress to osteoarthritis, such defects need to be repaired even though their exact natural course remains obscure. Traditional methods for repair, such as micro fracture, perforations, abrasion arthroplasty, have not produced consistent satisfactory long term clinical results. Transplantation of autologous bone marrow MSCs expanded in culture would be a promising approach in the repair of articular cartilage defects in human osteoarthritic knees. This method is clinically straightforward to perform because autologous cells can be readily harvested and expanded in culture without losing their capacity to differentiate into chondrocytes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical results obtained with autologous MSCs expanded in culture for the treatment of full-thickness chondral defects in human knee.