Articular cartilage engineering with Hyalograft® C: 3-Year clinical results

The use of tissue engineering for cartilage repair has emerged as a potential therapeutic option and has led to the development of Hyalograft® C, a tissue-engineered graft composed of autologous chondrocytes grown on a scaffold entirely made of HYAFF® 11, an esterified derivative of hyaluronic acid. Here we present the results of an ongoing multicenter clinical study conducted with the primary objective to investigate the subjective symptomatic, functional and health-related quality of life outcomes of patients treated with Hyalograft® C. Clinical results on the cohort of 141 patients with followup assessments ranging from 2 to 5 years (average followup time: 38 months), are reported. At followup 91.5% of patients improved according to the International Knee Documentation Committee subjective evaluation; 76% and 88% of patients had no pain and mobility problems respectively assessed by the EuroQol-EQ5D measure. Furthermore, 95.7% of the patients had their treated knee normal or nearly normal as assessed by the surgeon; cartilage repair was graded arthroscopically as normal or nearly normal in 96.4% of the scored knees; the majority of the second-look biopsies of the grafted site histologically were assessed as hyalinelike. Importantly, a very limited complication rate was recorded in this study. The positive clinical results obtained indicate that Hyalograft® C is a safe and effective therapeutic option for the treatment of articular cartilage lesions. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic study, Level HI-2 (retrospective cohort study).