Does Fresh Osteochondral Allograft Transplantation of Talar Osteochondral Defects Improve Function?

Abstract

Level IV, therapeutic study. See Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Evidence-Based Rationale for Ankle Cartilage Allograft Replacement: A Systematic Review of Clinical Outcomes

“…Regarding the type of fixation used to stabilize the graft material, a different method of fixation was used for allograft fixation in all 15 studies (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). All 3 types of fixation have been shown to be effective in providing resistance to shear stress in relatively stable transplant fragments (Tables 1 and 2).…”

The use of osteochondral allografts in the management of cartilage defects

“…Graft failure occurred in four patients; patient satisfaction was rated as good or excellent by 28 of 38 patients [43]. Berlet et al reported on 12 patients with a minimum follow-up of two years, showing radiolucencies in three, edema in four, and failure to incorporate in one, but none had subsidence [44]. Janis et al reported short-term results of 15 patients: nine lesions had no evidence of lucency and six demonstrated mild lucency.…”

Cartilage repair techniques of the talus: An update

“…Several authors have investigated the treatment of large osteochondral defects of the talus using osteochondral allograft transplantation in case series [7,46,[49][50][51][52] . The overall clinical results were promising, especially considering the size of the defects.…”

“…The overall clinical results were promising, especially considering the size of the defects. However, in certain of these studies, only a few patients were reported to be symptom-free [51] : some patients needed further surgical treatment, or the procedure failed [46,49,51] . In summary, the evidence for the use of osteochondral allograft transplantation has to be interpreted carefully.…”

“…In summary, the evidence for the use of osteochondral allograft transplantation has to be interpreted carefully. Most series included a small number of patients, studied patients retrospectively, had only a short-or midterm follow-up, or presented no description of the underlying size of the defect [7,46,49,50,52,53] . Additionally, in several of these investigations, patients were lost to followup or were excluded because of graft failure [46,50,52] .…”