Knee injuries are very frequent, especially in athletes such as runners or soccer players. The most common are meniscal injuries, patellar cartilage injuries and anterior cruciate ligament injuries. These can be treated by arthroscopy. Although there are also non-surgical treatments such as ozone and growth factors that can regenerate the knee.
What are the most frequent knee injuries?
The most frequent injuries in the knee, to summarize, are the injuries of the menisci that are fibrocartĂlagos that connect the femur with the tibia, it is a typical injury of the sportsmen. Then the cartilage injuries of the patella, also typical of jumpers, runners or sports such as basketball or volleyball, and perhaps the star injury is the anterior cruciate ligament injury, very common in soccer players. All these injuries that occur within the joint cavity are susceptible to be solved by means of arthroscopy.
What is arthroscopy?
Arthroscopy is a technique that allows us to operate on the knee without opening, through small incisions, two or three small holes, we introduce an optic connected to a television camera that allows us to see all the intra-articular structures. Through other holes we access the joint and we can introduce instruments to operate on the meniscus, the cartilage or even the anterior cruciate ligament. The advantages of this technique are that it does not require hospitalization and the patient recovers much more quickly.
What operations are performed for osteoarthritis of the knee?
The best known is the prosthesis of the knee that consists of replacing the femur and the tibia by means of a material, this would be what is called primary prosthesis, which sometimes also requires replacing the kneecap. When these prostheses fail because after 15-20 years this prosthesis begins to hurt or when one has a painful prosthesis, it is necessary to resort to change this prosthesis, to remove it and to place another one that as you see, they are different, bigger prostheses. And, sometimes, it is necessary to resort already to the biggest prosthesis that is the one that is called of hinge, that is a prosthesis that has a allows us to stabilize completely the knee. In this way, prostheses nowadays solve the problems of osteoarthritis and also the problems of the prostheses themselves.
What treatments are available without surgery?
Surgery, although it has very good results, has its small risks. We medical professionals try, before going to surgery, to use what we call non-surgical treatments. Within these treatments, which include physiotherapy, rehabilitation, medications… I would like to highlight regenerative treatments such as ozone therapy, the application of growth factors and the infiltration of hyaluronic acid or other products. For example, the best known is cortisone, which although it works very well, it is dangerous and we should try to avoid it. Ozone and growth factors will allow us in a natural way to perform treatments that will regenerate and stabilize the knee. Nowadays, infiltrations, if possible, should be performed with ultrasound to ensure that the needle is in the exact place where we want to introduce our product.
What are growth factors?
From my point of view, growth factors are the regenerative treatment of choice. Based on a blood extraction from the patient, the patient’s platelets are concentrated with a closed or open method. We use the closed method combined with ozone as well. And in this way, these platelets, once activated, release proteins that are growth factors. These proteins in the joint or in the injured tendons, because the growth factors can also be applied in tendinitis as well as in cases of hip osteoarthritis, knee osteoarthritis, etc. These will trigger regenerative reactions within the joints or tendons so that the cartilage will regenerate. It is not completely regenerated, but enough is regenerated so that the patient can notice a very important relief of his pain, of his inflammation and also an important improvement in his functional capacity.