Is Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reliable in Predicting Clinical Outcome After Articular Cartilage Repair of the Knee?

Abstract

Strong evidence to determine whether morphological MRI is reliable in predicting clinical outcome after cartilage repair is lacking. Future research aiming specifically at clinical sensitivity of advanced morphological and biochemical MRI techniques after articular cartilage repair could be of great importance to the field.

Matrix-Associated Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation

“…We did not perform MRI follow-up studies, as strong evidence is lacking to determine whether MRI is reliable in predicting clinical outcomes after cartilage repair. 29 There are limitations that need to be acknowledged and addressed regarding the present study. The first limitation concerns the heterogeneous patient population, which reflects the situation of patients with an indication for cartilage repair surgery.…”

A randomized controlled trial demonstrating sustained benefit of Autologous Matrix-Induced Chondrogenesis over microfracture at five years

“…In this study, MRI defect filling was more complete in the AMIC ® groups at two and five years. In this context, two recent meta-analyses of de Windt et al [27] and of Blackman et al [28] pointed out that conclusive evidence to determine whether morphological MRI is reliable in predicting clinical outcome after cartilage repair is lacking. These reports also stated that no MRI classification has been shown to correlate with clinical outcomes after different types of cartilage repair.…”

Management of Knee Cartilage Defects with the Autologous Matrix-Induced Chondrogenesis (AMIC) Technique

“…These reports also stated that no MRI classification has been shown to correlate with clinical outcomes after different types of cartilage repair, although AMIC was not among the procedures included in the studies [35,36]. Since the interpretation of cartilage structure from morphological MRI data is still debated and does not correlate with clinical scores, clinical and functional results should be considered as the most important outcomes, and so far, AMIC shows great clinical benefit for the patient.…”