London Cartilage Clinic
Explore expert articles on cartilage care, regenerative treatments, and practical recovery advice from our specialist team.
Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy removes protective meniscal tissue, increasing osteoarthritis risk sevenfold; randomised trials show physiotherapy produces equivalent functional outcomes for degenerative tears.
MACI is NHS-funded only when a patient meets all four TA477 criteria simultaneously; ChondroFiller has no NHS route and costs £3,000–£8,000 out of pocket. These treatments rarely serve the same patient.
Advanced knee osteoarthritis at KL Grade III–IV involves damage attwo anatomically distinct sites — worn cartilage and an inflamed synovial membrane. Single-injection treatments address only one; ChondroFiller (collagen scaffold) and Arthrosamid (polyacrylamide hydrogel) target each site simultaneously, producing IKDC improvements of approximately thirty points sustained to three years.
Microfracture and ChondroFiller injection deliver equivalent relief in the first year but diverge thereafter because they produce different repair tissue: microfracture generates fibrocartilage that deteriorates under sustained loading (62% failure at four years), whilst ChondroFiller creates hyaline-like cartilage that withstands cumulative compression.
ChondroFiller injection treats diffuse cartilage damage that surgery cannot, via matrix-induced chondrogenesis in Grade III–IV lesions with no published size ceiling (except hip ~6 cm²); candidacy depends on joint mechanical stability, MRI findings, and health profile, not symptom severity or age.
Knee cartilage grades (0–4) describe depth of structural damage, not pain; since cartilage has no nerve supply, pain stems from bone marrow lesions and synovial inflammation instead.
