Your body’s joints are lined with a smooth tissue known as hyaline cartilage, which acts as a shock absorber and allows the bones to move easily within the joint. Normal wear-and-tear or injury can cause defects in the cartilage, leaving irregular articular surfaces that limit movement. Patients with this condition often experience pain, swelling and even disability.

 

A variant of cartilage cell transplantation, DeNovo NT implantation, uses pre-prepared human cartilage graft material to replace damaged cartilage cells, forming new cartilage in the affected area. This procedure, unlike autologous chondrocyte implantation, can be performed in one stage as they do not require harvesting of healthy cartilage tissue.