London Cartilage Clinic
Explore expert articles on cartilage care, regenerative treatments, and practical recovery advice from our specialist team.
Liquid cartilage is an image-guided injectable collagen scaffold for carefully selected focal cartilage defects, not established osteoarthritis. Its role is to support joint preservation in the hip, knee and ankle while keeping microfracture, MACI and eventually fusion or replacement as the main options for advanced disease.
PRP knee injections tend to improve pain and function over 1–6 months rather than days, while ankle MFAT or Lipogems injections have only case-level evidence and suit mainly organised joints without major malalignment, collapse or unstable cartilage defects.
Night-time hip ache after load, an ankle that flares after sprains, and early knee osteoarthritis are usually mechanical problems rather than signs of cancer. Fewer than 20% of early knees worsen over 2–5 years, symptomatic primary ankle osteoarthritis is uncommon, and hip scans need clinical context because labral tears often appear in pain-free people.
Joint injections can reduce pain and improve function, but they do not repair cartilage or cure arthritis. Corticosteroids work fastest for short-term flare control, PRP tends to last longer in knee osteoarthritis, hyaluronic acid gives modest hip symptom relief, and BMAC remains an uncertain option for focal cartilage defects.
Classic ACI and MACI are usually two-stage procedures: a biopsy and knee assessment come first, then cultured chondrocytes are implanted weeks later. In one 46-patient series, only 26.1% went on to transplantation, while single-stage options such as AMIC and other one-step repairs are gaining ground for suitable focal defects.
AMIC is used for focal, full-thickness knee cartilage defects of about 2–8 cm² in relatively preserved joints, with recovery usually taking 6–12 months. In the hip, MACI remains a specialist two-stage option for selected younger patients with grade III–IV defects of at least 2 cm², where joint space and biomechanics still support preservation.
