Ankle and knee joints are a joint that is frequently traumatized during sports activities. The most common injuries are ligament injuries, namely sprains. While it is often possible to return to sports in 3-4 weeks at the latest with good treatment in severe sprains, for some athletes this period gradually becomes longer. This is due to cartilage injuries seen in the talus bone, one of the bones that make up our ankle. These injuries may occur in the form of bone marrow edema, which can heal spontaneously in a short time, or sometimes they may result in damage to the cartilage tissue along with the underlying bone tissue and its dislocation over time. In this case, the pain does not go away and surgical treatment is required. If the damaged piece falls into the joint after this condition, called osteochondral lesion of the talus, it is called joint mouse.
When a well-circumscribed osteochondral lesion is detected in the talus, one of the surgical treatment methods to be performed is arthroscopic cleaning, removing the damaged cartilage and cleaning its bed underneath. It is the process of bleeding the remaining bone and allowing cartilage formation, at least partially. The cartilage tissue expected to be formed with this technique called microfracture is a more brittle cartilage than the normal joint cartilage.
Another procedure is to transplant the cylindrical cartilage and bone tubes taken from the knee to the cleaned area after cleaning the clearly damaged structure. This process is done with millimetric measurements with the help of a set containing special tools. Since the tubes are taken from the non-load bearing part of the knee, they do not damage the knee joint. This procedure is called mosaicplasty. In order to perform the procedure, the lower part of the tibia is cut and screwed to unite at the end of the surgery.
The most suitable patient profile for mosaicplasty is the patient under 50 years of age, who presents in the early period, has damage under 2 cm2 and does not have widespread cartilage damage in the joint. .
Both procedures require a long treatment period. It should be known that the healing capacity of cartilage is weak. The patient should not put any weight on his feet for an average of 6-8 weeks.
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