Engineering cartilage replacements

A lab discovery is a step toward implantable replacement cartilage, holding promise for knees, shoulders, ears and noses damaged by osteoarthritis, sports injuries and accidents.
Self-assembling sheets of mesenchymal stem cells permeated with tiny be…

Light exercise may prevent osteoarthritis

CHICAGO — People at risk for osteoarthritis may be able to delay the onset of the disease or even prevent it with simple changes to their physical activity, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of …

Knee 'Scaffold' Study Offers New Hope for Injury Victims

Scientists in Britain are taking advanced surgical research further with the potential to offer new hope for knee-injury victims. They are following up international research that aims to improve knee cartilage repair techniques, termed ‘chrondrocyte implantation’. The procedure, developed in Sweden ten years ago, involves growing a patient’s knee cartilage cells in a laboratory, which are then implanted through open knee surgery. Recent exciting developments revolve around the materials or ‘scaffolds’ that the cells are grown on. The scaffold is inserted into the knee with the seeded cells growing on it, and disintegrates slowly once the knee’s cartilage cells have become established.