Cartilage Injuries
How We Can Help You for Cartilage Injuries
Our doctors have the specialized training and experience needed to precisely diagnose and effectively treat all cartilage injuries.
We deliver world-class care and offer all available therapies for your condition to help relieve symptoms that may include joint pain or swelling, knee instability, clicking sounds in your knee, and a feeling of popping or grinding in your knee. Our team develops a care plan personalized to your unique condition and needs. Team members include specialists in inflammatory conditions like osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Working closely as a team, our doctors emphasize noninvasive treatment whenever possible. Options may include changes in your activities or lifestyle, physical therapy, bracing and splinting, medications, or injection therapy. When necessary, we also perform all forms of hand surgery, from the common to the most complex, such as cartilage transplantation and joint replacement.
In addition, Stanford Health Care patients with cartilage injuries may have opportunities to join research studies of new treatments not yet available anywhere else.
What We Offer You for Cartilage Injuries
- Specialized expertise from one of the world’s leading programs focused on diagnosing and treating cartilage damage caused by injuries, accidents, or illnesses.
- Team-based treatment planning that brings together highly experienced specialists who create a comprehensive care plan personalized to your unique needs.
- Advanced treatment options, always emphasizing the least invasive approaches possible but also providing state-of-the-art surgery whenever needed.
- Full support that includes care planning and follow-up as well as strategies to prevent cartilage injuries from developing or getting worse.
- Clinical trial opportunities to join research studies of new innovations in the diagnosis and treatment of cartilage injuries.
- Ease of access with highly trained specialists conveniently located close to where you work or live.
Treatment for Cartilage Conditions & Disorders
Cartilage is a vital part of your connective tissue, smoothing the connections between bones. Stanford delivers all available therapies to treat cartilage conditions and disorders, whether caused by an accident, injury, or another health condition.
Stanford provides specialized care for orthopaedic (relating to the bones and muscles) and sports medicine issues. Our team includes specialists in inflammatory conditions like osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
We are experts at precise surgical treatments that can relieve discomfort and help you stay active. We are one of only a few medical centers to perform cartilage transplantation. You have access to other advanced treatments that fill in damaged cartilage and protect the joint surface.
Find the care you need to treat any cartilage disorder, including arthroscopic surgery, microfracture, and cartilage transplant.
Home Care and Lifestyle Changes
Nonsurgical Care
Arthroscopic and Surgical Procedures
Minor lifestyle changes and home care can help you feel better while living with a cartilage condition or disorder. These changes include:
Adapting your activities: Avoid high-impact and contact sports. Ask your doctor or physical therapist about tools to protect your joints and minimize pain.
Reducing inflammation: Rest and apply ice to an injured joint to help swelling go down. Take anti-inflammatory medications (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or naproxen) as your doctor recommends.
Wearing supportive shoes: Shock-absorbent footwear can reduce discomfort on your knees, ankles, and hips. Stable soles minimize your risk of falling if your knee buckles.
Losing weight: Maintaining a healthy weight relieves pressure on your hips and knees. Eating a healthy diet may help reduce joint inflammation, too.
If you need additional support or pain relief beyond what you have at home, your doctor may discuss:
Medications
You may need prescription-strength anti-inflammatory medication (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or naproxen) for more intense pain and swelling. For some systemic (whole-body) conditions, steroids or immune-suppressive medications may reduce your symptoms and keep you more comfortable.
Braces, splints, or taping
These techniques hold your joint in place and support it while you heal.
Hyaluronic acid injections
Hyaluronic acid injections can lubricate your joint and decrease the friction that causes pain. Your joints are naturally bathed in a fluid, called synovial fluid, that contains this gel-like lubricant.
Physical therapy
Our specialized orthopaedic physical therapists can teach you exercises to strengthen your muscles to better support your joints. You can also increase your flexibility and learn new ways of doing daily activities, with less pain.
Many cartilage injuries and disorders require surgery to remove damaged cartilage. Most often, joint surgery is arthroscopic. In this minimally invasive procedure, your doctor inserts tiny instruments, with a light and a camera, through small incisions near your joint.
Stanford provides cartilage surgery including:
Removal of damaged cartilage
Also called shaving or debridement, this arthroscopic procedure removes loose bits of cartilage that can cause pain or joint locking. After surgery, you may have less pain and swelling because of reduced friction in the joint.
Cartilage repair
For some conditions, like chondral defects, your doctor might be able to stitch the edges of the damaged cartilage back together.
Microfracture
Your surgeon makes tiny holes in the bone that enable new cartilage to grow and fill in damaged areas. Microfracture works best when the cartilage loss is confined to small areas, and healthy cartilage remains.
Cartilage transplantation
Your doctor might recommend this procedure for larger areas of damaged articular cartilage (cartilage in a joint that bends, like your knee). Your surgeon can take small pieces of bone and cartilage from other parts of your knee to replace your damaged cartilage. Only advanced medical centers, including Stanford, provide cartilage transplants.
Osteotomy
Osteotomy is surgery that cuts and reshapes a bone in your knee or hip. The procedure can restore your mobility and postpone the need for joint replacement.
Joint replacement
If cartilage is damaged beyond repair, your surgeon can replace the damaged joint with an artificial one. Learn more about knee replacement and minimally invasive joint replacement surgery.
Minor lifestyle changes and home care can help you feel better while living with a cartilage condition or disorder. These changes include:
Adapting your activities: Avoid high-impact and contact sports. Ask your doctor or physical therapist about tools to protect your joints and minimize pain.
Reducing inflammation: Rest and apply ice to an injured joint to help swelling go down. Take anti-inflammatory medications (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or naproxen) as your doctor recommends.
Wearing supportive shoes: Shock-absorbent footwear can reduce discomfort on your knees, ankles, and hips. Stable soles minimize your risk of falling if your knee buckles.
Losing weight: Maintaining a healthy weight relieves pressure on your hips and knees. Eating a healthy diet may help reduce joint inflammation, too.
close Home Care and Lifestyle Changes
If you need additional support or pain relief beyond what you have at home, your doctor may discuss:
Medications
You may need prescription-strength anti-inflammatory medication (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or naproxen) for more intense pain and swelling. For some systemic (whole-body) conditions, steroids or immune-suppressive medications may reduce your symptoms and keep you more comfortable.
Braces, splints, or taping
These techniques hold your joint in place and support it while you heal.
Hyaluronic acid injections
Hyaluronic acid injections can lubricate your joint and decrease the friction that causes pain. Your joints are naturally bathed in a fluid, called synovial fluid, that contains this gel-like lubricant.
Physical therapy
Our specialized orthopaedic physical therapists can teach you exercises to strengthen your muscles to better support your joints. You can also increase your flexibility and learn new ways of doing daily activities, with less pain.
close Nonsurgical Care
Many cartilage injuries and disorders require surgery to remove damaged cartilage. Most often, joint surgery is arthroscopic. In this minimally invasive procedure, your doctor inserts tiny instruments, with a light and a camera, through small incisions near your joint.
Stanford provides cartilage surgery including:
Removal of damaged cartilage
Also called shaving or debridement, this arthroscopic procedure removes loose bits of cartilage that can cause pain or joint locking. After surgery, you may have less pain and swelling because of reduced friction in the joint.
Cartilage repair
For some conditions, like chondral defects, your doctor might be able to stitch the edges of the damaged cartilage back together.
Microfracture
Your surgeon makes tiny holes in the bone that enable new cartilage to grow and fill in damaged areas. Microfracture works best when the cartilage loss is confined to small areas, and healthy cartilage remains.
Cartilage transplantation
Your doctor might recommend this procedure for larger areas of damaged articular cartilage (cartilage in a joint that bends, like your knee). Your surgeon can take small pieces of bone and cartilage from other parts of your knee to replace your damaged cartilage. Only advanced medical centers, including Stanford, provide cartilage transplants.
Osteotomy
Osteotomy is surgery that cuts and reshapes a bone in your knee or hip. The procedure can restore your mobility and postpone the need for joint replacement.
Joint replacement
If cartilage is damaged beyond repair, your surgeon can replace the damaged joint with an artificial one. Learn more about knee replacement and minimally invasive joint replacement surgery.
close Arthroscopic and Surgical Procedures
INTERESTED IN AN ONLINE SECOND OPINION?
The Stanford Medicine Online Second Opinion program offers you easy access to our world-class doctors. It’s all done remotely and you don’t have to visit our hospital or one of our clinics for this service. You don’t even need to leave home!
Visit our online second opinion page to learn more.
Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are research studies that evaluate a new medical approach, device, drug, or other treatment. As a Stanford Health Care patient, you may be eligible to participate in open clinical trials.
Open trials refer to studies that are currently recruiting participants or that may recruit participants in the near future. Closed trials are not currently enrolling, but similar studies may open in the future.
What Are Cartilage Conditions & Disorders?
Our Clinics
Stanford Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine offers some of the nation’s best care for conditions like cartilage injuries and disorders. Find the help you need from our world-renowned orthopaedic surgeons, physiatrists, and sports medicine doctors.
450 Broadway Street
450 Broadway StreetRedwood City, CA 94063
Phone: 650-723-5643 Getting Here »
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Suite 200
Pleasanton, CA 94588
Phone: 925-272-2860
To schedule an appointment, please call: 650-723-5643
Cartilage Injuries
Our experts provide all available care, including treatments like cartilage transplant, for osteoarthritis, sports injuries, and other cartilage disorders.
Cartilage conditions and disorders
Arthroscopy
osteoarthritis