A new smart cartilage is causing a stir. But what chance is there of it ever getting the opportunity to make a difference to your knee pain? YKC’s Jim Newman explores the frustrating gap between medical news and clinical product development.

Every week, pretty much without fail, I’ll have a chat with a patient about their knee osteoarthritis, and as we explore their treatment options the patient will ask: “But what about this new treatment I’ve read about?”

That’s because, also virtually every week, the press is full of new developments that are set to change the face of knee surgery. Eventually, some of them just might, but there’s a lot of water to flow under that particular bridge before they do.

Into that category falls a new “smart cartilage” which, according to MedicalXpress, “can sense tiny changes within the body, such as during an arthritis flareup, and release drugs exactly where and when they are needed.”

Developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the squishy material could be used in artificial cartilage, improving the way we administer pain relief, fight inflammation and, crucially, deliver treatment tailored to individual needs that delays the need for knee replacement.

Is that something that’s worth getting excited about? Yes. Is it likely to be a factor in your knee surgery in the next five years? Perhaps even the next decade? No.

Knee surgery – press vs science

The problem is the natural tension that exists between the immediate and constant need for news and the time it actually takes to develop new medical products.

Tellingly, the article says, “The team’s next steps will involve testing the materials in living systems,” which means that results so far have been limited to lab tests. Reaching the point where the cartilage is being implanted in patients is a long way off.

Open to the latest advances

All of this is not to say that, should the new material reach the medical market with the data to support its effectiveness, we won’t incorporate it in our ‘toolkit’ of materials and techniques for treating knee osteoarthritis.

One of the reasons I and my Yorkshire Knee Clinic colleagues attend conferences and read research papers is to explore the latest products and techniques, examine the data and find opportunities to improve patient care.

It’s just that we do it for products that are much further down the development pipeline.

So next time you read about an exciting new development that could be set to change the face of orthopaedics, double check the detail. If it hasn’t yet been put to human trials, the chances are that – at best – it’s years away from being any practical benefit to patients.