London Cartilage Clinic
Explore expert articles on cartilage care, regenerative treatments, and practical recovery advice from our specialist team.
Hip cartilage loss causes pain that peaks at night because lying down concentrates load on the posterior femoral head—precisely the surface most often damaged by wear—without the postural relief daytime walking provides. ChondroFiller, an acellular collagen scaffold, addresses this through mechanical cushioning and biological repair.
ACI recovery to high-impact sport takes twelve to eighteen months, not the six months most patients expect—a gap driven by biology, not surgical complexity, that consistently undermines rehabilitation adherence.
Grade 3 cartilage damage on knee MRI means a lesion extending beyond the halfway point with the subchondral bone plate intact; Grade 4 means the lesion extends through the bone. The grade does not determine treatment — size, location, and symptoms do.
ChondroFiller costs £3,000 to £8,000 depending on defect extent rather than joint type and is available only as private treatment in the UK, requiring self-funding or insurance pre-authorisation.
Meniscus tears redirect load directly onto articular cartilage, tissue with no blood supply that cannot repair itself. The resulting cartilage damage is progressive and irreversible, accumulating over years even from minor tears.
ChondroFiller is an injectable collagen scaffold that gels within minutes to form a framework recruiting the hip's own repair cells into cartilage defects; tissue regeneration progresses over three to six months, not immediately.
