Doctors at Fortis Malar Hospital performed an ‘All Autologous Cartilage Transplant’ (AACT) on a 72-year-old patient to treat cartilage defects of the knee. In this “new technique”, doctors harvested a small piece of healthy articular cartilage from the patient’s knee through a keyhole procedure, combined it with Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) and applied it on the lesion site to enable the patient to get up on her feet.
The patient had difficulty in walking after a fall while climbing a staircase. On examination, doctors diagnosed her with osteochondritis dissecans, a condition in which the cartilage and underlying bone structure of joints are damaged.
Articular cartilage covers the bone surface where there is a joint. It makes movement smooth and pain-free. In conditions such as arthritis, this is damaged and causes a lot of pain in patients, according to Nand Kumar Sundaram, senior consultant, Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon, Fortis Malar Hospital.
“We performed an AACT procedure in which we harvested 5 ml of cartilage from the non-articular surface. This was combined with PRP, which is the growth factor, and applied on the lesion site. Using fibrin, an autologous sealant obtained from the patient’s blood, we packed the cartilage. In two to three months, the patient will have a normal knee,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
He added that this procedure helped in preventing further damage to the patient’s knee and has repaired the defect. “Traditionally, we culture the cartilage for six weeks and perform a second surgery to inject it. This new technique avoids this cumbersome process and helps in quicker recovery. It will benefit younger patients with sports injuries in which there are large cartilage defects,” he added.
