The repair of articular cartilage injuries remains a challenge. In this 2-year study, osteochondral defects in the femoral condyles of five rabbits were repaired with an autogenic perichondrium cell/polylactic acid graft and compared with a contralateral control in which the defect remained empty. The rabbits in the group with the grafts had a higher percentage of biologically acceptable repairs (100%) than did those in the control group (80%). According to the histologic and histomorphometric analyses, the grafts augmented the intrinsic healing. Nonetheless, the results for the grafts were tarnished by a depressed repair surface and a histologic appearance not equivalent to that of normal cartilage. The application of growth factors to this model may yield a clinical treatment.
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Dounchis et al. (2000) studied this question.
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