The Nose is Connected to the Knee Bone…

True story, nasal cartilage is a good replacement for knee cartilage and nine people have undergone nose-to-knee cartilage transplants. This new technique could be a real game changer for folks with knee problems due to sports injuries, injuries from falls, or degeneration due to osteoarthritis. In the early trial the nine people that needed knee surgery because of acute cartilage damage volunteered some nose cells which the researchers used to grow a 3 by 4 centimeter sized piece of tissue (this took 2 weeks) that was then grafted into the volunteer’s knee. All nine have shown improvement in the use of their knees and the amount of pain. More trials are in the works and there is hope that the same cells (from the nose) might be used in facial reconstruction in the future. This is definitely a time when one might say the nose knows making knee surgery better by using your own cells to regrow cartilage is the bees’ knees!