Orthobiologics and Knee Osteoarthritis: A Recent Literature Review, Treatment Algorithm, and Pathophysiology Discussion

Abstract

This article reviews the current options in orthobiologics for the clinical treatment of knee osteoarthritis (OA). We describe a new model of knee OA that fills the gap in our understanding of it as a purely traumatic and/or inflammation-induced cartilage degenerative condition, to a current model of multinodal pathophysiology. We discuss graft choice and patient selection in the current state of understanding of the treatment of knee OA in a tissue engineering model with orthobiologics. We present a sample treatment algorithm and decision nest for deciding how to proceed with patient care.

Keywords: Extrusion; Fat lipoaspirate; Knee osteoarthritis; Meniscus; Multinodal pathophysiology; Orthobiologics; Stem cell depletion model; Tissue engineering.