The treatment has, the New York Times tells us, prolonged the careers of many aging professional athletes, and now it’s coming to a hospital near you, where it will prolong the careers of amateurs like us. It’s an arthroscopic procedure known as microfracture surgery, and its goal is to regenerate cartilage eroded from overuse or sheared off from injury. The good news is that this really works: of 25 pro football players treated with microfracture, 19 returned to play the season after surgery and continued to play for an average of 4.6 additional seasons. The bad news is the recovery: one doctor told the Times that patients were required to be on crutches up to eight weeks and to spend at least six hours a day with a machine that moves the knee in a continuous passive motion, because the tissue remains delicate during maturation, which takes at least a year.
Health, fitness and lifestyle tips for people over 50 who still like to play hard
Sunday, June 1, 2025
I have had all the cartilage removed from
both knees aged 17/19 and have worn out
both joints on a bone on bone wear process.
Both are consistanyly swollen with athletic
use over a 30 year period.
Is there any help for me at age 57, I would
still like to be fit and active, but exercise only makes the problem worse.
Microfracture can work, but has a very significant failure rate; probably between 25 and 50 % . The ideal cartilage treatment will be more predictable and require less down time. Of course most of us have lower demands upon the knee than sports stars.
They key will be to find the approriate patients before the knee is completely worn out.
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