Repair of osteochondral defects in articular weightbearing areas in the rabbit's knee. The use of autologous osteochondral and meniscal grafts.

Repair of osteochondral defects in articular weightbearing areas presents its own particular problems because of the low potential of hyaline cartilage for regeneration. Our first group of experiments on the knee of the rabbit confirms that the new regenerated cartilage comes from bone marrow which degenerates before developing into true hyaline cartilage. The second group of experiments shows that autologous grafts from the non-weightbearing articular area suitable for the repair of defects in weightbearing areas. In an third group, autologous meniscal fibrocartilage was used as a graft for the repair of osteochondral defects.