Pridie hole

The Pridie drilling is the drilling of cartilage defects in order to break through the underlying bone layer and to enable the growth of blood vessels and thus regeneration of the tissue by replacement cartilage. The Pridie drilling is one of the cartilage techniques and is therefore related to abrasion arthroplasty and microfracturing. The bone is punctually injured under the damaged cartilage. This stimulation of the bone marrow is supposed to stimulate the formation of fiber cartilage. The bleeding from the intact bone is said to stimulate the formation of replacement cartilage. This replacement cartilage is what is known as fiber cartilage, which, in contrast to the original, hyaline cartilage, is not as resilient.

With microfracturing, also called micro fractures, the bone surface under the cartilage is broken open (fractured). In an arthroscopic operation, the damaged articular cartilage is first removed down to the bone boundary layer and then perforated with an angled awl through holes approx. 3 mm deep. The holes are made at regular intervals every 2 to 3 mm. This stimulation of the bone marrow is supposed to stimulate the formation of fiber cartilage. From the artificially created defects a so-called blood clot emerges from the bone , which also contains stem cells , which are then supposed to develop into fiber cartilage over the joint surface treated in this way. Subsequent relief of the knee joint for at least 6 to 8 weeks using forearm crutches is necessary in order to protect the newly emerging cartilage.

Microfracturing is one of the bone marrow stimulating procedures and is used for limited cartilage damage to the knee joint that goes deep down to the bone. This method was developed by Richard Steadman .

Proof of sustainable effectiveness is not possible in the case of major cartilage damage.

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b ^c Christoph Gaissmaier, Jürgen Fritz, Jürgen Mollenhauer, Ulrich Schneider, Stefan Marlovits, Jens Anders, Bernhard Schewe, Kuno Weise: Course of clinically symptomatic cartilage damage of the knee joint. Results with and without biological reconstruction. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. Vol. 100, Issue 38, 2003, A2448 – A2453, (PDF 76.6KB) (accessed on December 16, 2012)
↑ Markus Lerner: Tapping . In: Martin Engelhardt: Lexicon of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery. Online lexicon (accessed July 20, 2012).
↑ JR Steadman, WG Rodkey, JJ Rodrigo: Microfracture: surgical technique and rehabilitation to treat chondral defects. In: Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research . Vol. 391 Supplement, 2001, ISSN 0009-921X , pp. S362-S369, PMID 11603719 (review).

[Ärzteblatt38-2003-1] A ^b ^c Christoph Gaissmaier, Jürgen Fritz, Jürgen Mollenhauer, Ulrich Schneider, Stefan Marlovits, Jens Anders, Bernhard Schewe, Kuno Weise: Course of clinically symptomatic cartilage damage of the knee joint. Results with and without biological reconstruction. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. Vol. 100, Issue 38, 2003, A2448 – A2453, (PDF 76.6KB) (accessed on December 16, 2012)

[Lexikon-Orthopädie-2] Markus Lerner: Tapping . In: Martin Engelhardt: Lexicon of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery. Online lexicon (accessed July 20, 2012).

[3] JR Steadman, WG Rodkey, JJ Rodrigo: Microfracture: surgical technique and rehabilitation to treat chondral defects. In: Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research . Vol. 391 Supplement, 2001, ISSN 0009-921X , pp. S362-S369, PMID 11603719 (review).