Comparative Outcomes for the Treatment of Articular Cartilage Lesions in the Ankle With a DeNovo NT Natural Tissue Graft: Open Versus Arthroscopic Treatment.

Background: The treatment of osteochondral lesions of the talus (OLTs) with a juvenile cartilage allograft is a relatively new procedure. Although other treatment options exist for large OLTs, the potential advantage of a particulated juvenile allograft is the ability to perform the procedure arthroscopically or through a minimal approach. No previous studies have looked at the results of an arthroscopic approach, nor have any compared an arthroscopic technique with an open approach.

Purpose: To compare the outcomes of an arthroscopic transfer technique with the previously published open technique.

Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods: A total of 34 patients (mean age, 33 years) underwent treatment of talar cartilage lesions with a DeNovo NT Natural Tissue Graft. Of these treatments, 20 were performed arthroscopically and 14 were performed with open arthrotomy. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups with respect to age, lesion width, lesion depth, lesion length, or operative time. The mean lesion area was 107 mm. The scores from 6 different validated outcome measures were recorded for patients in each group preoperatively and subsequently at 6 months, 1 year, 18 months, and 2 years.

Results: Comparing outcome scores at each time point to baseline, there were no statistically significant postoperative differences found between open and arthroscopic approaches with regard to the visual analog scale (VAS) for pain ( = .09), American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle-hindfoot scale ( = .17), Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (FAAM)-sports subscale ( = .73), Short Form-12 (SF-12) physical health summary ( = .85), SF-12 mental health summary ( .91), or FAAM-activities of daily living subscale ( = .76).

Conclusion: The treatment of talar articular cartilage lesions with a DeNovo NT Natural Tissue Graft demonstrated no significant differences in outcome at 2 years regardless of whether the graft was inserted with an arthroscopic or open technique.

Clinical Relevance: Our analysis demonstrated no significant difference between an arthroscopic versus open approach at any time point for the first 2 years after implantation of a juvenile particulated cartilage allograft for large OLTs. With that said, both groups demonstrated improvement from baseline. These findings indicate that surgeons with different levels of comfort utilizing arthroscopic techniques can offer this treatment modality to their patients without altering their planned surgical approach. In addition, this will be particularly helpful in counseling patients for surgery when the extent of the defect will be evaluated intraoperatively. Patients can be counseled that they will likely have the same incisions regardless of whether they require debridement, microfracture, or implantation of a particulated allograft.