Repair of Large Full-Thickness Articular Cartilage Defects with Allograft Articular Chondrocytes Embedded in a Collagen Gel

Full-thickness articular cartilage defects are a major clinical problem; however, presently there is no treatment available to regeneratively repair these lesions. The current therapeutic approach is to drill the base of the defect to expose the subchondral bone with its cells and growth factors. This usually results in a repair tissue of fibrocartilage that functions poorly in the loaded joint environment. The use of phenotypically appropriate chondrocytes embedded in a collagen gel delivery vehicle may provide a method that could be used to repair full-thickness articular cartilage defects with functionally satisfactory hyaline cartilage. Allograft articular chondrocytes embedded in a type I collagen gel were transplanted into large ( 6 × 3 × 3 mm), full-thickness articular cartilage defects in condylar and patellar weightbearing surfaces to develop clinically applicable methods to repair articular cartilage defects. Chondrocytes were isolated from the articular cartilage of 4-week-old New Zealand rabbi...