Knee Resurfacing

What Is Knee Resurfacing?

Knee resurfacing is an operative procedure that addresses localised cartilage (joint surface lining) defects in the knee joint and improves pain and function.

What is a femoral condyle cartilage defect?

The knee joint consists of three bones; the femur; the tibia, and the patella or knee cap. The ends of the femur and tibia glide against each other as you move. Cartilage is the slippery shock absorbing material that covers the ends of bones to allow pain free movement. A femoral condyle cartilage defect disrupts this surface which can lead to pain and loss of movement. If these defects are not treated they typically grow in size and depth until the pain is unmanageable.

Most of these defects are routinely treated by a technique called micro-fracture (drilling small holes in the bone) to promote some healing and eventually sealing off the defect with a layer of fibrocartilage.

Generally, in people aged between 35-65, sometimes these defects are quite large and the results with the micro-fracture technique are not very predictable or successful and in other people sometimes the micro-fracture treated areas fail and in both these situations using an implant to address the localised cartilage defect helps with pain and function.

There are various knee resurfacing options with different sized implants and materials and even patient specific implants.

The implants I routinely use to address these defects are Biopoly and Episurf.

What is the BioPoly RS Device?

BioPoly RS is an implant utilizing an advanced biomaterial to resurface (RS) cartilage defects. The BioPoly RS material contains hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring biomolecule found in the joint fluid. This gives the implant enhanced lubricity and allows the femur and tibia to glide against each other without causing pain or additional damage.

So what does this mean?

We can now replace only the damaged portion of cartilage with an implant that interacts favourably with the surrounding tissues. Since the implant and procedure are minimally invasive you can recover rapidly and return to a pain-free active lifestyle quickly.

How Much Time Will I Be Off Work and What Is The Recovery Process?

The exact amount of time you will need to recover before going back to work will depend to a certain extent on how large the defect is an where in the knee it is, but, the BioPoly RS implant allows you to begin walking immediately, resulting in rapid rehabilitation and return to activity.

Cartilage Defects & Bioploy Implants