Knee joint cartilage injury happens especially at femoral condyle surface and patellar articular surface due to trauma such as pivoting sports, patellar dislocation or if the knee bends deep in force. Cartilage can also get damaged due to injury to underlying bone, the example is osteochondral defect (OCD). Traumatic cartilage injury commonly happens between the 15-30 years age group.

Damaged cartilage can create acute symptoms like pain, swelling, locking or can convert to osteoarthritis in the long run due to lacking shock absorbing capacity.

Cartilage injury can be partial thickness, full thickness or associated with underlying bone. A full thickness cartilage injury with its underlying bone can be diagnosed on x-ray. This type of injury is usually seen in patellar dislocation. For other cartilage injury MRI is the investigation of choice.

There are different way to treat the cartilage injury

• Osteochondral graft
• Two stage Cartilage replacement surgeries
• Single stage surgery where the defect is covered with active material which converts into secondary cartilage at due time.