Microfracture Knee Surgery.

Microfracture surgery is a procedure that treats damage in the knee by actually creating tiny fractures in the bone. After first going in and cleaning out calcified cartilage the surgeon creates tiny fractures in bone. These fractures cause a cascade that lead to the creation of new cartilage. This procedure is considered an intermediate step in treatment of the knee. It is also used in order to avoid having to have a partial knee replacement or total knee replacement. This procedure is used to treat pain in the knee from arthritis, cartilage damage, and lesions in the knee.
The downside to this procedure is that the new cartilage created is not as durable as the original cartilage.

This procedure has been most notably performed on athletes in the NBA. The results however have been mixed. Some players return have a full recovery and return to level of play they were at before the procedure. Others however, are not as lucky. Some return to the game and are different player while others never fully recovered and were forced to retire. Due to the high stress on the knees in basketball it is tough to predict how any one player will recover.

I chose to research this article because recently a player on the Houston Rockets elected to undergo this procedure and I was curious to what it was. I thought it was a procedure to actually repair microfractures in the bone, not create them. After learning about this procedure I feel that can be improved in the future by biomedical research. Stem cell research could make this procedure more effective as it could improve the cartilage that is made to where it resembles the original knee cartilage.