Should Arthroscopic Bone Marrow Stimulation Be Used in the Management of Secondary Osteochondral Lesions of the Talus? A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Osteochondral lesions of the talus are common, particularly after trauma. Arthroscopic bone marrow stimulation has emerged as the first-choice surgical treatment for small primary lesions less than 100 mm2. Individual studies on the topic are small and heterogeneous, and they have differed in their main findings; for this reason, systematically reviewing the available evidence seems important.

Questions/purposes: In this systematic review, we asked: (1) What patient-reported outcomes and pain scores have been observed after arthroscopic bone marrow stimulation for secondary osteochondral lesions of the talus? (2) What complications were reported? (3) What demographic and clinical factors were reported to be associated with better patient-reported outcome scores?

Methods: We performed a systematic review according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines using Embase, EmCare, PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus (databases last searched June 23, 2021). A two-stage title/abstract and full-text screening process was performed independently by two reviewers. Randomized control trials, cohort studies, and observational studies published in English that evaluated the outcome of arthroscopic bone marrow stimulation for secondary osteochondral lesions of the talus were included. Case reports, review articles, commentaries, abstracts, and letters to the editor were excluded. A total of 12 articles (10 case series and two retrospective comparative studies) involving 446 patients were included. Of these, 111 patients with a mean age of 33 years (range 20 to 49) received arthroscopic bone marrow stimulation for a secondary osteochondral lesion of the talus. The Methodological Index for Non-randomized Studies (MINORS) criteria were used to assess the methodologic quality of included studies. The MINORS is a numerical score ranging from 0 to 16 for studies with no comparison group and 0 to 24 for comparative studies, with higher quality studies receiving higher scores. Of the 10 noncomparative case series, the highest score was 10 of 16, with a median (range) score of 7.5 (4 to 10), while the two comparative studies scored 22 of 24 and 19 of 24, respectively.

Results: Studies varied widely in terms of patient-reported outcome measures such as the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society score (AOFAS), with inconsistent reporting across studies regarding whether or how much patients improved; there was variation in some effect sizes with regard to improvement seeming close to or below the minimum clinically important difference (MCID). Although no perioperative complications were reported in any included studies, 34% (26 of 77, in seven studies that reported on this endpoint) of patients who underwent a revision procedure. One study found a negative association between lesion size and AOFAS and VAS score. No other studies reported on factors associated with patient-reported outcome scores, and most studies were far too small to explore relationships of this sort.

Conclusion: We found that arthroscopic bone marrow stimulation for secondary osteochondral lesions of the talus yielded inconsistent and often small improvements in patient-reported outcomes, with approximately one in three patients undergoing a revision procedure. Reported outcomes likely represent a best-case scenario, inflated by low-level study designs and major sources of bias that are known to make treatment effects seem larger than they are. Therefore, the use of arthroscopic bone marrow stimulation in such patients cannot be recommended, unless we are able to refine selection criteria to effectively identify patients who show a substantial clinical benefit.

Level of evidence: Level IV, therapeutic study.

Fig. 1

This PRISMA flow diagram shows the total number of studies retrieved and excluded at each screening stage.