 Typical findings in
moderately severe arthritis. The cartilage is very irregular.
Surprisingly, unless there is complete wear down to bone it
may be difficult, even with probing of the cartilage, to see
how thick the remaining cartilage is. The old fashion x-ray is
still an indispensable tool in assessing knee arthritis. |
 Sometimes you can see the
underlying bone, evidence of advanced arthritis |
|
 One the cartilage has worn
out, the underling bone becomes exposed |
  The lining tissues of the
knee, called the synovium, becomes very inflamed. |
 Compared to relative mild
swelling and redness in this picture |
 In early arthritis the
cartilage becomes loose and breaks away |
 The shaver, also know as
chondrotome is used to remove any loose material in the knee |
 Loose pieces of cartilage
commonly break away from the knee in arthritis |
 These may grow to become
large, called loose bodies |
 |
|
|
 Loose bodies located at
arthroscopy can be removed with special instruments |
|
 VAPR cleaning of the
loose and worn cartilage
"The VAPR System's
technology creates an ionized vapor pocket at the working tip
of each electrode. Tissue entering the pocket becomes
instantaneously vaporized, permitting rapid and precise
removal of soft tissue"
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