Fibrin Clot Delivery System for Meniscal Repair

Meniscal repair using a fi brin clot was fi rst introduced by King in 1938 and became popular by Arnoczky and Warren 4) in 1983.It has been commonly performed for tears of the inner meniscus where blood supply is poor.Th ere have been many clinical studies that show good results of meniscal repairs using fi brin clots for the past 20 years.However, there is paucity in the literature regarding the PRP therapy, and the optimal concentration of platelets and growth factors to produce signifi cant physiological improvements over the use of a fi brin clot has not been established.Fibrin clot, which is similar to PRP in terms of the components and healing mechanism, can be prepared with less effort and in a shorter time without expensive equipment and causes few side eff ects with the use of autologous blood.Th us, it has received considerable attention in the orthopedic fi eld.However, there are no standardized techniques for meniscal repair using a fi brin clot.Fibrin clots are oft en destroyed near the arthroscopic portal and can be stuck in the subcutaneous fat layer.In addition, placing a fi brin clot at the target area is challenging because it adheres to sharp edges of surgical instruments such as probes and arthroscopic forceps.For these reasons, surgeons have been reluctant to use fi brin clots.We report an arthroscopic meniscal repair technique using a fibrin clot designed to successfully deliver fibrin clots to target areas avoiding the abovementioned problems with a review of pertinent literature.