Unfortunately in anatomy and orthopedic surgery, the word "cartilage" is used to refer to many different structures that have very little similarity other than their native biochemical makeup. In the knee, the word cartilage is used both for the smooth gliding surfaces of the ends of the femur and tibia bones (articular cartilage) as well as the shock absorber pads located between the two bones and sitting on top of the tibia (meniscal cartilages).
Most people who have been told they have a torn cartilage usually have a tear of the meniscal (shock absorber) cartilage, but they might have torn or injured both types of cartilages. Usually if surgery has been done, this will involve an arthroscopic surgical procedure and the portion of the meniscal cartilage that was torn is trimmed out.
However if the meniscal cartilage was torn near its outside edge, then it can potentially be Repaired with sutures or other fixation materials. This type of tear is a much less common than the type that is trimmed out as mentioned in the previous paragraph.
There are many patients who in past years especially before arthroscopic techniques became common place, that had there entire meniscal cartilage removed even for small or repairable tears. Many of these people are now facing pre-mature arthritis of the knee that might be potentially arrested by a Meniscal Transplantation.
Note: Since starting this website in September 1995, many of the questions people email to me about Swedish Cartilage Regeneration methods (an articular cartilage procedure) really have to do with meniscal and not articular cartilage problems. If you have early arthritis (some of the articular cartilage is wearing off the ends of the bone) then also see Knee Cartilage Regeneration - Swedish Method.
The above pictures show a couple of the techniques for meniscal transplantation (putting new shock absorber cartilages on the top of the tibia bone).
Return to Top Meniscal Repair and Transplantation Page
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Updated 1/26/97
