Summary
The ends of bones are soft, so they must be covered with a thick white gristle called cartilage. Many people suffer from knee pain because the cartilage is damaged. They may have osteoarthritis in which the cartilage wears away, or they may have damaged cartilage by playing sports or in an accident. Once damaged, cartilage never heals; the person spends the rest of his life losing cartilage until it is completely gone and the knee hurts 24 hours a day.
Until recently, the only effective treatment has been to cut out the ends of the bones of the knee and replace the entire knee joint. Now for some people, a simpler procedure may be effective: partial knee replacement called unicompartmental knee arthroplasty. The surgeon removes just part of the cartilage and bone on the upper and lower legs on one side of the knee.See the full content of this document
Extract
Cartilage Trouble Eased by Surgery
However, this procedure is not for everyone. Since partial replacements are more fragile than total knee replacements and last a much shorter time, ...
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