As articular cartilage over many bones in many joints of our body has only limited ability to regenerate, many treatment modalities have been developed during the past several decades to treat symptomatic articular cartilage injuries. Among these treatment modalities, autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) has become a standard technique used to repair symptomatic, full-thickness, chondral injuries which are so serious and sometimes so much painful that knee replacement is required, by this technique most knee replacement surgeries may be avoided. The traditional ACI technique involves injection of cultured autologous cartilage cells into the prepared cartilage defect which is covered by a periosteal flap.
The technique requires extensive surgical exposure in order for the sutures to be watertight as well as an additional incision for harvesting the periosteum. In addition, cell…
