London Cartilage Clinic
Explore expert articles on cartilage care, regenerative treatments, and practical recovery advice from our specialist team.
Knee pain that flares predictably around ovulation and menstruation stems from concurrent hormonal effects: estradiol and relaxin loosen joint connective tissue and stabilisers, whilst falling oestrogen lowers pain thresholds through inflammatory and neurotransmitter pathways.
Two cartilage repair techniques sound similar—both use collagen, both aim to restore damage—yet operate on opposite biological principles: ChondroFiller injection delivers an acellular scaffold that progenitor cells naturally colonise; MACI harvests, cultures, and surgically reimplants the patient's own chondrocytes.
ChondroFiller is an injectable acellular collagen scaffold for single-compartment Grade III–IV osteoarthritis that initiates repair via matrix-induced chondrogenesis, with progenitor cells migrating in to lay down new cartilage tissue. In appropriately selected patients, outcomes were good-to-excellent in over 80%, with functional improvement sustained at 1.5 years.
ChondroFiller, an acellular collagen scaffold injected into focal ankle cartilage defects, gels in place and draws the body's own progenitor cells to trigger repair; evidence is robust for knee cartilage but absent for ankle.
Bone marrow stimulation fails for most talar osteochondral lesions above 15 mm in diameter. ChondroFiller is an acellular collagen scaffold, delivered outpatient under ultrasound guidance, designed to support tissue repair in lesions of that size.
Walking protects damaged knee cartilage; inactivity accelerates its loss. The MOST trial measured cartilage change via MRI in 1,462 patients and found higher activity associated with 5% reduction in cartilage loss per increment.
