Microfracture

Microfracture chondroplasty is a procedure pioneered by Dr Richard Steadman in the US and is a treatment for defects in the articular cartilage surface of the knee joint. It is an arthroscopic procedure in which small controlled fractures are made in the base of the defect using sharp “picks”. Bleeding then occurs into the defect and a clot forms which over the course of several weeks becomes “organised” into cartilage.

A further advance in this procedure is to combine the procedure with a collagenous matrix which protects the clot allowing earlier mobilization of the knee. This procedure is called AMIC.