Older patients with knee pain may benefit from Osteochondral allograft transplant

Osteochondral allograft transplantation has raised a new hope to treat knee pain in active patients over 40 years of age, according to the findings of a research presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in San Diego. The study was published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

"Our findings note that patients older than 40 may benefit from using a fresh osteochondral allograft transplantation to treat focal cartilage defects, a common cause of knee pain in adults," said lead author, Dennis Crawford, MD, Ph.D. from the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon.

A total of 80 patients were divided into two groups by Crawford and his colleagues. The study group consisted of 38 patients, 10 women and 28 men who were at least 40 years of age and a control group with 42 patients (27 men and 15 women) who were 39 years of age or younger.

A statistically significant improvement for both groups was noted for the final follow-up for IKDC and all five KOOS sub-scores.

The study found relatively significant changes in the ability of patients to perform sports and with improvement in healthful daily activity. Previous surgical treatment was performed on 31 of 38 knees in the study group and 37 of the 42 knees in the control group.

"This type of osteochondral allograft transplantation has traditionally been used in younger active patients with cartilage disorders. However, seeing this type of success allows sports medicine physicians another option in older patients and serves as a predictable biologic joint preservation technique," said Crawford.

The osteochondral allograft transplantation surgery which is commonly known as OATS replaces damaged cartilage in the knee with healthy cartilage from the donor. This procedure helps to relieve pain and restoring movement and function to the joint. A mosaicplasty is the name for the general procedure that treats severe cartilage damage and OATS is a type of mosaicplasty.