An athletic woman in her 30s shows up in the doctor’s office with a painful, swollen knee that clicks and pops.
The cartilage in her knee is damaged, but the problem isn’t severe enough for knee replacement surgery. Are her tennis-playing days over?
No, thanks to an innovative treatment option that involves harvesting the patient’s healthy cartilage and implanting the new cells into the damaged knee joint, where new cartilage will begin to grow.
Saint Francis Hospital is one of only several hospitals in the Chicago area to provide patients with this state-of-the-art procedure, also known as Carticel surgery.
“What makes this procedure so remarkable is that it’s the first time we have been able to restore a person’s own cartilage,” said Ronald Silver, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon on staff at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston. “It’s 95 percent successful in patients—preventing arthritis in the joint and eliminating the need down the road for knee replacement surgery.”
Knee problems are painful and debilitating, and can affect those of all ages. There are about 10.8 million patient visits made each year to the doctor’s office for knee problems, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).
Cartilage is an opaque-white connective tissue located in the joints, nose and ears. It helps cushion the surface of the joints. If damaged or worn away, it cannot heal and may need to be surgically removed.
Dr. Silver, of the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute in Lincolnwood and the Loop, has performed Carticel surgery for about two years. Few physicians on the North Shore are trained in the procedure, which was approved for use in this country in 1997.
Carticel surgery must be done in two parts. The surgeon performs an outpatient arthroscopic procedure to view the knee and assess the problem. The surgeon may discover a “pothole or crater,” where there is no longer any cartilage. If a patient is a good candidate for the procedure, the surgeon removes healthy cartilage from the knee and sends it to a laboratory in Boston, where the cells are harvested for six weeks.
The patient is then brought back to the hospital for the second part of the procedure. The surgeon sutures a patch over the “pothole.” and then injects the cells (harvested cartilage) through the patch into the defective area. New cartilage reattaches to the adjacent cartilage and begins to grow.
“It’s a good procedure for young patients with sports injuries and those individuals under age 50 who do not have arthritis,” Dr. Silver said. “Patients are on crutches for about one month after surgery and must go through rehabilitation therapy.”
Patients can be back on their feet in about four weeks and doing low-impact sports, such as bike riding, in eight to 12 weeks, according to Dr. Silver.
To contact St. Francis Hospital, 355 Ridge Ave. in Evanston, call (847) 316-4000.
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