Joint Project

In a carticel implant to repair a knee, the procedure pioneered by Dr. Peterson, an arthroscopic biopsy is performed first to harvest a sample of healthy cartilage (1). From this sample, new cartilage cells are grown in a petri dish or flask (2). When the cultured cells are ready, they are inserted under a periosteal patch (3) that has been taken from the shinbone and grafted onto the implant site (4). The implanted cartilage then slowly spreads like moss.