Osteoarthritic Knees Benefit From Fibrin Glue Scaffold

Study findings showed fibrin glue to be an effective scaffold for mesenchymal stem cell implantation when treating patients with osteoarthritic knees.

Asian researchers retrospectively evaluated the outcomes of 54 patients who underwent second-look arthroscopy after mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) implantation for the treatment of lesions in their osteoarthritic knees. The analysts split the cohort into two separate groups: Group 1 was comprised of 37 patients who underwent MSC implantation without a scaffold, and group 2 included 17 patients who underwent MSC implantation with fibrin glue used as a scaffold.

Using pre- and postoperative IKDC and Tegner activity scale scores, the researchers evaluated the patients’ clinical outcomes. The International Cartilage Repair Society (ICRS) grading system was used to evaluate the repair of cartilage lesions, and prognostic factors associated with clinical and second-look arthroscopic outcomes were identified through statistical analyses. Mean follow-up was at 28.6 months.

According to the researchers, patients in both treatment groups experienced significant improvements in mean IKDC scores, with group 1’s score increasing from 38.1 preoperatively to 62 postoperatively and group 2’s score increasing from 36.1 preoperatively to 64.4 postoperatively. Tegner score also improved significantly between the pre- and postoperative periods in both groups, with an increase from 2.5 to 3.5 in group 1 and from 2.2 to 3.8 in group 2.

Additionally, nine of the 39 lesions in group 1 and 12 of the 17 lesions in group 2 achieved an ICRS cartilage repair grade of 1 or 2.

The researchers found being overweight and having a large lesion size were predictors of poor arthroscopic outcomes in group 1. Although a similar trend was observed in group 2, the differences were not considered significant.