Question
When I was in Europe in the 1980’s, I read about a Doctor either in Sweden or Switzerland who would remove some of your joint cartilage and grow it outside the body and reinsert it back into the joint. This doctor supposedly had a 98% success rate in people being able to function again. Do you know if this procedure has been approved in the United States? If so, do you know who is performing this procedure? Thank you for your assistance.
Answer
This procedue is being done in the U.S. but not for osteoarthritis but for conditions where the defect in the cartilage is small. The cartilage defects in OA are too large and are under too much mechanical stress for this technique to be used. But with advances in materials science, I think it likely will become reality soon.
