Cartilage Restoration Center of New Jersey Opens at Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute in Freehold

Freehold, NJ, May 17, 2009 --(PR.com)-- What if you could grow your own knee cartilage? Sound like a chapter from a science fiction novel? “Culturing a patient’s own cartilage cells and then putting them back into the knee at a later time is an exciting new operative technique,” says Dr. Gregg S. Berkowitz, who announced the opening this week of the Cartilage Restoration Center of New Jersey, established to treat, repair, and restore damaged cartilage in the knee and other joints of the body.

Dr. Berkowitz, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at the Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute (AOSMI), Freehold, is the director of the Center, a division of AOSMI, and Dr. Michael J. Greller, a board-certified and a fellowship-trained sports medicine orthopedic surgeon, is the assistant director. Doctors Berkowitz and Greller both have been specially trained in this operative technique as well as other techniques that involve taking cartilage and bone from elsewhere in the joint and from donors.

Doctors at the Cartilage Restoration Center will evaluate candidates for one of several innovative procedures and focus on surgical techniques from cleaning out damaged cartilage to stimulating the body to form new cartilage, culturing a patient’s own cartilage cells, or replacing damaged bone and cartilage.

“Cartilage restoration is usually suitable for teens and those up to about age 55 or younger. Unfortunately, cartilage restoration is not a viable technique for the Medicare-aged populace or the elderly,” says Dr. Berkowitz.

Dr. Greller says, “These techniques will not work for individuals beyond age 55 or for those who might need a partial or total joint replacement, which the doctors here at AOSMI can certainly do. Because these techniques basically try to repair cartilage instead of replacing it with an artificial joint, it works best on younger people.”

“You actually take a biopsy of the cartilage,” Dr. Berkowitz says, “and send it to a laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it takes three to four weeks to culture the cells.

Specially trained surgeons at the Cartilage Restoration Center then replace the damaged area and fill it with these new cartilage cells, which over time will hopefully form new cartilage. Culturing is a very recent cartilage repair technique and is successful because culturing creates the same type of joint cartilage, rather than scar tissue.”

Injuries to the cartilage are not always the result of a sports-related mishap. Cartilage damage can occur from any sort of trauma, such as a car accident or a fall from a ladder or stepstool. Sometimes an old ligament injury can make the joint unstable, resulting in cartilage damage.

The Cartilage Restoration Center is located at Pond View Professional Park, 301 Professional View Drive, Freehold, NJ. Call 732-720-2533 for further information.

Today, the surgeons at Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute provide the Monmouth and Middlesex County communities with specialists for every orthopedic need. Located in the Pond View Professional Park at 301 Professional View Drive in Freehold, and Renaissance Crossing Medical Arts Building at 312 Applegarth Road, Suite 101, Monroe Township, New Jersey, Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute provides advanced medical care at with leading doctors and surgeons, state-of-the-art technology, and exceptional Patient-Centered, Patient-Focused Care ™. The seven practicing physicians at AOSMI have a combined 100 years of experience providing exceptional orthopedic care to the New Jersey communities of Monmouth and Middlesex County. For more information, call 732-720-2555 or visit www.AdvancedOrthoSports.com.

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