What is osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is the wear and tear of joint structures. This primarily includes the irreversible destruction of joint cartilage. In the further course, the cartilage tears open. The defects become deeper and larger, resulting in painful cartilage damage.
Due to increasing axial misalignment, muscles, tendons and capsule structures are also affected. The resulting complaints are pain, limited mobility, swelling, axial misalignment and stiffness.
Knee osteoarthritis: Conservative treatment options
With all forms of arthrosis, the following applies: "You snooze, you lose". But how should you move if the pain restricts this?
With knee osteoarthritis, there are many conservative measures that can reduce the pain. For example, physiotherapy, walking aids, medication or knee-friendly sports. However, the measures depend strongly on the motivation and patience of the patient.
Complete cartilage regeneration and thus a completely symptom-free life is very lengthy, only possible at all under certain conditions and sometimes impossible. Therefore, it makes sense to think about regenerative cartilage procedures.
The treatment to restore the original cartilage that will help you live pain-free again
In the past, there were many surgical measures that helped the patient in the short term, but were not sufficient in the long term. For example, the use of an artificial knee joint was only delayed with the "old" methods, but not prevented.
Current studies have shown that over 50 % of all hip and knee prosthesis implantations would not be necessary! This is where our new, state-of-the-art therapy options come in.
With our procedure it is possible to heal most cartilage defects and thus prevent a prosthesis. And this up to a 4th degree cartilage damage.
With more than 600 successfully performed chondrofiller operations, we are one of the world's most experienced practices in this field. Every year, arthroprax performs as many meniscus implantations as all other German doctors combined. So you are in the best hands.
Newest method: Use of collagen for cartilage damage
Collagen is found in all structures of the human body. As a protein, it is the main component of skin, tendons and cartilage. To repair a cartilage defect, we use a highly pure biological collagen gel that was developed for the therapy of cartilage damage at the Frauenhofer Institute.
This gel only needs to be applied to the defect through a minimally invasive procedure.
Over the next few weeks, cartilage induction occurs, which means that the surrounding cartilage cells grow into this gel. That's why I like to describe it as fertiliser.
The clear advantage of the gel is that the implant does not have to be cut to size, but adapts completely to the defect.
Existing studies show that there is regeneration of the cartilage after a short time. In our own observations, we can confirm this in control MRI examinations after 8 months.
Below are images from the study: "Beck OT: Cartilage induction using cell-free collagen matrix (Chondrofiller liquid). Clinical and MRI follow-up. OUP 2018; 7: 620-624 DOI 10.3238/oup.2018.0620-0624"
The advantage over all previous measures
The advantage over all previous cartilage regenerative measures is that the original cartilage is created again. The patient gets fully resilient cartilage again without the use of foreign materials.
The previous competing procedures were microfracturing and autologous chondrocyte transplantation. In the latter, the knee joint was treated in two operations. In the first operation, cells were removed; in the second, the cultured cells were inserted into the defect.
In the case of cartilage induction with the gel described above, it is the case that a single arthroscopy is completely sufficient, as it is possible to reach and treat all defects with this procedure.
Limits of the procedure
The limits of the procedure with collagen lie in the defect size: max. 4 cm diameter. The opposite side must have a largely intact cartilage cover, as it is through this structure that the surface modelling takes place. Also, more than 50% of the meniscus should be present. If this is not the case, it is possible to implant a replacement meniscus during the operation.
With early treatment, all possibilities can be used to preserve your biological joint!
I would be happy to advise you personally and without obligation in your case as well.
