Table 1.

Surgical approaches for treatment of OA.

Intervention type	Description
Total Joint Replacement	Joint components (e.g. menisci, bone, diseased cartilage) replaced (fully or partially) with an artificial prosthesis [46]
Chondrocyte Transplantation	Repair of damaged or defective articular cartilage through implantation of autologous cartilage cells/chondrocytes [48,49]
High Tibial Osteotomy/Distal Femoral Osteotomy	Realignment of the knee joint by dividing and internally fixing either the tibia or the femur to alter load across the joint [50]
Microfracture	Holes are bored into the subchondral bone of OA lesions to release bone marrow cells which repopulate a clot in the lesions, leading to fibrocartilage formation which then covers the cartilage defect/exposed bone [51].
Transplantation of Osteochondral Plugs (autologous/allogeneic)	Bone-cartilage plugs are taken from either non-weight bearing areas (autologous) or allogeneic tissue, and then press fit into defects in the damaged cartilage [52]
Stem Cell Implantation	Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from bone marrow, fat, synovium, or other tissues are expanded in vitro and implanted into cartilage as either free cells [53,54,56]; MSC incorporated into a scaffold of synthetic or organic molecules and implanted into OA lesions [55,56]; or the MSC in an endogenously produced matrix (TEC) are implanted into OA lesions [20]