CARTILAGE TRANSPLANT SURGERY

On March 29, 2000 Thomas Brandon, MD and Eric Franks, MD made history at Peninsula Regional Medical Center.  During an operation that morning, the two Orthopaedic Surgeons performed the Medical Center’s first Cartilage Transplant surgery, a procedure mastered by less than 10 percent of all surgeons here in the United States.  “It was clockwork surgery,” said Dr. Franks.  “Everything happened exactly as we had trained for and exactly as we had expected.”   Drs. Brandon and Franks are the only physicians performing the operation in our region.

The procedure, which requires a full month of preparation, is nothing short of amazing.  It begins when surgeons remove, arthroscopically, healthy cartilage from a portion of the knee near an area that has been damaged by a trauma, sports, or occupational injury.  In this case, that cartilage was from the left knee of 47-year-old Fred Moore of Allen, Maryland.  That healthy sample was sent to the Genzyme Corporation Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Scientists there actually used that sample to “grow” new cartilage cells over a period of three weeks.  Those new cartilage cells were then returned to Drs. Brandon and Franks who performed an “open” knee surgery and injected them back into the small, injured portion of Mr. Moore’s knee after removing the damaged cartilage from the area.  The new cells introduced into the knee were covered by a layer of soft tissue removed from an area on Mr. Moore’s lower left leg.  The tissue was used to hold the cells in place until they attach themselves to the bone, growing new cartilage in the process.

Mr. Moore was on crutches roughly six weeks and full recovery, with specialized rehabilitation, should take four to six months.  The reported success rates range from 75 to 90 percent.  Candidates for the surgery are customarily 20 to 50 years old and must have no evidence of arthritis in the knee. The surrounding cartilage must be healthy.  The damaged area can not be larger than 10 to 12 square centimeters in diameter and should be located at the end of the femur (thigh bone) where that specific cartilage allows smooth, low friction movement and provides cushion to the joint.

“When cartilage is damaged it dies and does not grow again on its own, creating a friction point on the bone that patients describe as a very painful ‘gravel-like’ grinding feeling.  The surgery was developed to treat a person, like Mr. Moore, who has injured a small portion of the cartilage in their knee and is intended to relieve pain and possibly help to prevent arthritis from occurring 10 to 15 years down the road,” said Dr. Brandon.  “This is not a cure for arthritis or recommended for anyone suffering from arthritis.”

Drs. Brandon and Franks believe there are numerous patients in the region who meet the criteria and could be treated with this new Cartilage Transplant surgery.  For more information, you can call Peninsula Orthopaedic Associates, P.A. in Salisbury at 410-749-4154.

“Prior to the surgery, it was impossible to walk without pain.  Now that I’m off the crutches and walking on the leg again, I don’t have any of the pain that I felt before.  My recovery is going smoothly and I’m told I’m actually ahead of schedule with the physical therapy."  Fred Moore, Cartilage Transplant Patient, Allen, Maryland pictured above with Drs. Franks, left, and Brandon, right.