The injury and repair of human articular cartilage: a morphological study of 192 cases of coxarthrosis.

The examination of articular cartilage from 192 osteoarthritic hip joints has shown a combination of cell and matrix injury on the one hand and cell and matrix regeneration on the other. The reparative cartilage tissue has three sources, bone, synovium and cartilage, which are both intrinsic and extrinsic. The observation of reparative cartilage in every case examined, and of significant amounts in more than 50% of the cases, indicates that the cartilage has considerable potential for repair. In particular, intrinsic repair which is of cartilage origin, in our opinion, has a very significant role in the articular cartilage.