By Brenda Schory
GENEVA – For the past 20 to 30 years, when a young person experienced a knee injury, the treatment was to drill little holes in the knee to stimulate the body to produce fibrous tissue, a local orthopedic surgeon said.
“It was not cartilage, but a layer of tissue. That does OK in the short term, but over the long term, doesn’t do well,” said Dr. Vishal Mehta, an orthopedic surgeon at Fox Valley Orthopedicsin Geneva. Mehta specializes in sports medicine.
Since December, Mehta has used ProChondrix Augmentation, a new way to treat knee injuries that stimulates the body to produce its own cartilage. The surgery is for those in their teens up to early 40s involving injuries in which the bone has no defect, but the cartilage is wiped away, he said. These patients are too young for knee replacements, he said.
The procedure involves sealing a small sheet of cadaver cartilage atop the knee with the holes drilled into it, Mehta said.
