Cartilage Replacement For ankle Arthritis
Cartilage Replacement For ankle Arthritis
If you have foot or ankle arthritis you may be frustrated with the available options. Non surgical options such as physical therapy or injections may not have worked for you. You may have researched stem cell treatment, however there is no real good scientific data that shows it grows any cartilage, let alone reduce pain. I have patients that have spent over $5,000 in stem cell injections and have gotten no relief. Typically from a surgical standpoint the options available have been Ankle joint fusion or ankle replacement. Ankle replacement has advantages of maintaining motion, however there is much argument in the literature as to the longevity of the hardware used in ankle replacements. As well when there are complications such as loosening of the implant of infection then you really have problems. Many times with ankle replacements one will get back their motion but it is painful motion, and the surgeon needs to remove large chunks of bone to get in the implant. On the other hand ankle fusions have been around as a solution for over 50 years. ( I have even published articles on this procedure https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bebf/d64602522a0ad98eee28aa3c972696b08857.pdf ) The procedure works by eliminating the motion from the ankle. No motion should equal no pain. However loss of motion can have effects on other joints and will affect the way you walk. With both of those procedures you end up burning bridges and can not turn back once done.
Cartilage Replacement For ankle Arthritis
This brings us to an innovative procedure that I have been doing the past few years and that is cartilage replacement of the ankle for ankle arthritis. There is now available cryo-preserved cartilage on the market that promotes stem cell like migration. http://www.osiris.com/cartiform/
This biological implant allows for one to maintain motion and does not remove large chunks of bone. Lastly one burns no bridges when putting it in. If the procedure does not give you the results that you were hoping for you can always still have the replacement or fusion . This procedure works great on ankle arthritis and Hallux rigidus ( arthritis of the big toe)
watch my video below describing a case study.
cartilage replacement arthrex cartiform big toe
