陈飞飞　田清业　张祚勇　何正

Various causes which may lead to the defects of articular cartilage are very common in clinic. The regenerating capacity of cartilage tissue is limited, so it is hard to cure when it gets damaged. For the defects of articular cartilage, the present internal and external treatment methods are mainly sub-chondral drilling, micro-fracture, periosteum, perichondrium and other soft tissue transplantation, autologous or allogeneic bone cartilage transplantation and cartilage tissue engineering. In general, when the cartilage defect area is less than 1.0cm, drilling, micro-fracture surgery or periosteum and soft tissue transplantation can obtain satisfactory effect; but when the defect area is bigger than 1cm or even bigger, autologous or allogeneic bone cartilage transplantation and cartilage tissue engineering method will be needed. Although a lot of methods have been used for the treatment of articular cartilage injury and diseases, and they have got certain effect in a short time. However, there is still no effective treatment method to ensure the long-term functional recovery of the articular cartilage. Sub-chondral drilling is a potential repairing method, but it also depends on age, the defect area and biological factors. And the success rate of the regeneration and restoration of cartilage surface layer to the functional state is very low. Although hyaline cartilage repair mode has got gratifying progress, but there is no effective therapeutic measure to restore the articular cartilage complicated biological, morphological, and mechanical properties. Articular cartilage is listed as highly organized tissue; however, the existing engineering cartilage culture system cannot distinguish the refined structure. The future development of cartilage repair should be focused on the principle, which means to design, construct and restore of the complicated function of articular cartilage based on tissue engineering, chemistry, biology and other life science concepts. The engineered cartilage with fine structure can bring new ideas and methods to repair and replace articular cartilage. Commonly used treatment methods of articular cartilage defects are reviewed in this article, pointing to the problems need to be solved.