ABSTRACT
Articular cartilage damage is very common in clinical practices. Due to the low self-healing abilities of articular cartilage, the repair strategies for articular cartilage such as arthroscopic lavage and debridement,osteaochondral or chondrocytes transplantation, tissue engineering and hydrogel based artificial cartilage materials are the primary technologies of repairing articular cartilage defect. In this paper,the main repair strategies for the articular cartilage damage and the advantages or disadvantages of each repair technology are summarized. The arthroscopic lavage and debridement is successful in treating the early stage of osteoarthritis. Osteochondral and chondrocytes transplantation are beneficial to treat small full thickness defects. The technology of tissue engineering becomes a new method to heal articular cartilage damage, but the major problem is the absence of bonding strength between the implants and natural defect surfaces. Hydrogel based artificial cartilage possesses similar bio-mechanical and bio-tribological performances to that of natural articular cartilage. However, both bioactivity and interfacial bonding strength between the implant and natural cartilage could be further improved. How to simultaneously optimize the mechanical and bioactive as well as biotribological properties of hydrogel based materials is a focus problem concerned.
