Findings from a pilot study conducted in Switzerland and published in the Oct. 22 issue of the journal The Lancet suggest that hyaline-like cartilage tissues engineered from autologous nasal chondrocytes may have efficacy for repair of articular cartilage defects in the knee. 

The researchers conducted a trial of 10 human patients with symptomatic, post-traumatic, full-thickness cartilage lesions on the femoral condyle or trochlea. They engineered cartilage grafts from chondrocytes isolated from a 6 mm nasal septum biopsy specimen, and implanted the engineered tissues into the femoral defects via mini-arthrotomy. At 24-month follow-up, they found significant improvement in self-assessment scores for pain, knee function, and quality of life, and radiological assessment indicated variable degrees of defect filling and development of repair tissue approaching the composition of native cartilage. The researchers noted no adverse reactions.Learn more...