Cartiledge Transplant VS Microfracture

Hi Karen, I was having a similar discussion today with my OS. He is not in favour of microfracture. Apparently the cartledge which regrows from the microfracture is fibrocartledge which is not adequate for weight bearing surfaces and over time will deteriorate again. He is encouraging me to have cartledge plugs instead- harvested from another site and grafted into the affected area- not unlike hair plugs.
A trial is currently underway for a new process which uses a gel material added to the microfracture site to form a scaffold for new cartledge growth- BST-CarGel, this sounds promising but is a year or two in the future.
I wanted to be part of the trial, but my medial femoral defect is only 3cm square and the trial requires a defect greater than 4 cm sq.
Best of luck