Osteochondral Transplant Delivery System

Project Overview

Current osteochondral graft surgical procedures repair articular cartilage defects on the femoral condyle using impaction for insertion of the replacement graft. Impaction negatively impacts chondrocyte viability within the cartilage layer and can cause long-term failure of the surgical procedure, requiring subsequent surgeries. Thus, a design must be developed to reduce mechanical forces exerted on the cartilage layer during insertion of the graft in order to obtain higher postoperative chondrocyte viability and increase the success rate of the osteochondral allograft procedure. Threading the graft and recipient site is a novel technique that has not seen an extensive amount of previous research. Threaded grafts maintains bone’s mechanical properties while decreasing compressive forces required to insert it into a hole. Six bone plugs were obtained for grafting. Three were inserted using the thread technique and three were inserted using impaction. The cartilage was removed from each plug and were subjected to a live/dead assay. The cartilage was sectioned and imaged using a fluorescence microscope to obtain cell counts and later analyzed for cell viability percentages. The live/dead obtained a p-value = 0.89, showing statistically insignificant data, a need for more consistent standardized testing, as well as more extensive research.