The main aim of cartilage surgery and hip arthroscopy in the management of
early hip arthritis is to avoid conversion to total hip arthroplasty, and the earlier the
treatment, the greater is the possibility to achieve this purpose. Several techniques have
been proposed, such as microfracture, simple debridement, and autologous chondrocyte
implantation-matrix assisted autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI-MACI) for
arthroscopic approach and open ACI-MACI and mosaicplasty for open surgery.
Arthroscopic debridement associated with microfracture, depending on the patient’s
condition, represents the best choice for the treatment of early stages osteoarthritis
(OA) of the hip joint, especially where an associated chondral defect has to be fixed.
The cause of OA must be promptly individuated and the cartilage surgery must always
be associated (except for degenerative OA) with procedures aimed to fix any other
structural defect in order to avoid further degeneration and to improve the outcome of
the surgery.
Keywords: Articular cartilage repair, Autologous chondrocyte implantation,
Cartilage surgery, Debridement, Hip arthroscopy, Hip chondral lesion, Hip
osteoarthritis, Microfracture, Mosaicplasty, Open hip surgery, Osteochondral
allograft transplantation.
