Articular Cartilage Repair Techniques.

The type of surgical treatment will depend on the size and location of the cartilage lesion. Usually, smaller cartilage lesions are treated with a microfracture technique, whilst cartilage lesion adjacent to the labrum can be treated with an acetabular rim recession (by removing the zone without cartilage).

The microfracture technique is well established and usually takes 5-10 min. The technique should be selected for smaller cartilage lesions, with good quality surrounding articular cartilage. Microfracture surgery works by creating tiny fractures in the underlying bone. This causes new cartilage to develop (fibrocartilage) from a so called super-clot and so will fill up the defect in the articular cartilage surface.

When performing this procedure, the hip needs to be protected longer and patients are advised to use crutches for 6 weeks.
About 18% of the patients treated for impingement in professor Schilders’ pratice require a microfracture.

(Microfracture technique with awl)

(bleeding of the microfracture holes. The cartilage lesion is surrounded by thicker and healthly cartilage.)

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