One-year follow-up data from the German Cartilage Registry (KnorpelRegister DGOU) in the treatment of chondral and osteochondral defects of the talus.

INTRODUCTION

Chondral and osteochondral lesions of the talus (OLTs) remain a challenging issue with numerous operative treatments proposed to date. The aim of this study was to evaluate 1-year follow-up data in the German Cartilage Registry (KnorpelRegister DGOU).

METHODS

Among 401 patients in the database, 114 patients with a complete 1-year Foot and Ankle Outcome (FAOS) score for subscale Pain as the primary variable were included. A total of 12 different surgical treatments were performed. However, 8 techniques were carried out in negligible numbers of patients (n = 1-3), leaving 89 patients treated with the following techniques: arthroscopic antegrade bone marrow stimulation (group A; n = 32), autologous chondrocyte implantation with autologous cancellous bone grafting (group B; n = 9), matrix-augmented bone marrow stimulation (group C; n = 22), and matrix-augmented bone marrow stimulation with autologous cancellous bone grafting (group D; n = 26). Group differences and possible influencing variables such as age and sex were evaluated. Level of significance was set at p < 0.05 for all statistical tests.

RESULTS

All four treatment groups showed significant improvement of the FAOS scores at 1 year postoperatively compared with their preoperative scores. No significant differences were found with respect to score changes among the groups. A positive correlation between FAOS subscale Pain improvement and defect size volume and negative correlations between increasing age and FAOS subscales Sports/Rec and QoL were found. Concomitant ankle stabilization led to greater improvement in FAOS subscales Symptoms and ADL than in patients with no stabilization. FAOS subscale Pain showed greater improvement in women than in men.

CONCLUSION

All analyzed treatment options were effective for treatment of OLTs. In particular, large defects appeared to benefit from treatment. In the presence of concomitant ankle instability, a stabilizing procedure appeared to have a positive impact on the outcome.