[Cell based therapy for articular cartilage injury]

Articular cartilage has the poor capacity for cartilage regeneration, which lead to develop osteoarthritis when cartilage injury occurs. Autologous chondrocyte implantation using three dimensional culture within atelocollagen gel has obtained good clinical results for articular cartilage injury. However, there are two concerns associated with this technique : the number of harvested chondrocyte is limited and arthrotomy is required for implantation of tissue-engineered cartilage. To improve the cell-based articular cartilage treatment, the use of other cell source such as mesenchymal stem cells, and development of less invasive and more efficient cell delivery system should be needed. Translational research will has more and more important implication for clinical application of articular cartilage repair.