Accelerated Return to Play Following Osteochondral Autograft Plug Transfer (OATS)

Objectives:Chondral lesions about the knee are a challenging clinical entity particularly among high performance athletes whose return to play is dependant on the quality and durability of chondral repair. At our institution, we favor osteochondral autograft plug transfer (OATs) when lesion size and location allow, as we believe it results in the most durable cartilage repair currently available due to the transfer of autogenous hyaline cartilage into the area of injury. We further postulate that OATs may allow a more rapid return to play in the athlete population, as the release to full activity is predicated only on adequate time for bony healing and appropriate clinical progress. We investigated the time for return to play in a cohort of competitive athletes who had undergone OATs followed by an accelerated return to play protocol and compared this to previously published timelines for chondral repair procedures.Methods:This was a retrospective chart review of an overall institutional cohort of 152 ost...