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Updated: May 28, 2026
Autologous Microfractured and Purified Adipose Tissue for Arthroscopic Management of Osteochondral Lesions of the Talus
Published on: January 23, 2018
Clinical outcome after microfracture of the knee: a meta-analysis of before/after-data of controlled studies
Lukas Negrin1, Florian Kutscha-Lissberg, Gerald Gartlehner
1University Department of Trauma Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. lukas.negrin@meduniwien.ac.at
Purpose:
The aims of this study were to systematically review the medical literature, in order to find controlled studies about microfracture in the treatment of patients with full-thickness cartilage lesions of the knee, to statistically combine these studies in order to determine a best estimate of the average treatment effect, and to gather information to detect cartilage-specific and patient-specific factors that might have an influence on the clinical outcome.
Methods:
We searched four electronic databases for controlled clinical trials or controlled prospective observational studies. We pooled before/after-data of study arms using the term microfracture.
Results:
We calculated an overall best estimate of 1.106, with [0.566; 1.646] as 95% confidence interval of the mean standardized treatment effect for a representative patient population.
Conclusions:
Our meta-analysis revealed a clinically relevant improvement of the postoperative clinical status as compared to the preoperative status. An increase of 22 overall KOOS points may provide a rough estimate for the mean expected treatment effect achieved by microfracturing.