KEY POINTS:
The more frequently people play sports after having surgery to restore damaged knee cartilage, the better they will fare long-term, German researchers report.
Dr Peter Cornelius Kreuz of University Medical Centre Freiburg and colleagues found that patients who engaged in competitive sports at least once a week after initial recovery from the operation showed better knee function and cartilage regrowth than their less active peers.
"After the first three to six months it depends really on the patients themselves what they do," Dr Kreuz said. The researchers evaluated patients who underwent autologous chondrocyte implantation, a surgical procedure in which cartilage cells are removed from the non-weight bearing area of the knee, grown in a lab dish for several weeks, and then reimplanted to replace damaged cartilage.
Dr Kreuz and his colleagues followed 118 patients who had undergone autologous chondrocyte implantation surgery, following them for three years. The patients were categorised into four activity levels: 1, engaging in sports four to seven days a week; 2, one to three days a week; 3, one to three times a month; or 4, no sports at all. Six months after the surgery, the patients in levels 1 and 2 showed significantly better knee function and cartilage repair than those who were less active, and the difference persisted until the end of the survey.
"There must be a stimulus for the cartilage," Dr Kreuz noted, adding that too much stress can be detrimental.
Patients were instructed to avoid very high-impact activities and sports involving sharp pivoting and stick to lower-impact activities such as jogging and tennis for the first year after surgery.
- Reuters
