HUMC Offering Treatment to Regrow Knee Cartilage Cells

What you need to know

Hackensack University Medical Center is among the first hospitals in New Jersey to offer a cutting-edge treatment to regrow and implant a patient’s own cartilage cells to regenerate knee cartilage.

Surgeons at Hackensack are using MACI (autologous cultured chondrocytes on porcine collagen membrane) implants to treat patients with cartilage defects.

Details

The MACI technology reproduces a patient’s own cells using autologous cultured chondrocytes that are seeded onto a resorbable collagen membrane. MACI requires smaller incisions and less scar tissue cleanup, resulting in faster recovery and rehabilitation time for patients.

Ideal candidates for MACI implants are younger, active adults with full thickness symptomatic articular cartilage defects of the knee.

MACI was approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2016 and is the latest generation of ACI, which James W. Cahill, M.D., senior orthopedic surgery attending, has been successfully performing for nearly two decades at Hackensack.