Ming Hao Zheng, MB, PhD, DM, FRCPath Centre for Orthopaedic Research, School of Surgery, The Universtiy of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth, 6009, Australia
Symptomatic articular cartilage lesions affect millions of people worldwide. As articular cartilage has no intrinsic capability to self-regenerate following injury, patient will develop significant symptomatic osteoarthritis in later life. It is estimated that approximately 60% of patients will have OA within 20 years of occurrence an articular cartilage defect. Currently there are several articular cartilage repair techniques as either surgical procedures or manufactured products. These include microfracture, mosaicplasty, scaffold implants (such as carbon fiber). In recent year, autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) has become popular for the repair of articular cartilage lesion. During last 10 year, we have developed the matrix induced autologus chondrocyte implantation (MACI) technique for the treatment of cartilage lesion. To date, there are more than 7000 patietns world wide treated with MACI. Here we have report the pre-clinical evaluation of MACI and clinical outcome of Australian patients treated with MACI. We have also discussed option of an arthroscopic procedure of MACI and feasibility on the use of allogenic chondrocyte as one step procedure. It is concluded taht arthroscopic MACI should be the future for minimize the complication of surgical procedure.