Efficacy of BST-CarGel in Treating Chondral Lesions of the Hip

Hip pain in young patients is difficult to diagnose and treat. However, with advanced imaging techniques and surgical method, the investigators are able to identify hip cartilage lesions as a cause for the hip pain. MR (magnetic resonance) arthrography is the best imaging modality to diagnose chondral lesions of the hip, but it occasionally miss the pathology, thus necessitating a more accurate and invasive means of diagnosis. Consequently, hip arthroscopy is increasingly used for both diagnosis and treatment for hip cartilage pathology. Microfracture is a means of stimulating bone marrow, and is a standard treatment for small chondral lesions. This procedure has shown to result in excellent functional and anatomical outcomes. Microfracture is now recognized as a standard treatment for cartilage lesions in the knee, and recently the indications of this technique extended to hip pathology. The BST-CarGel device (Piramal Life Sciences, Bio-Orthopaedic Division) is based on the patented technology for cartilage repair. BST-Gel comprised of the buffer beta-glycerophosphate and chitosan, which is a well-studied natural material that is biocompatible and appropriate for its use as a scaffold to assist in cartilage repair. BST-Gel is mixed with the patient's whole blood and delivered to a surgically prepared cartilage lesion in conjunction with bone marrow stimulation. The BST-CarGel/blood mixture solidifies in the cartilage lesion and provides a three-dimensional scaffold for the repair process. This product has shown to result in superior chondral lesion repair when compared to the bone marrow stimulation alone. The current study will collect data through standard of care practice when BST-CarGel in conjunction with a bone marrow stimulation technique is used for the treatment of focal cartilage lesions in the hip. In addition, these patients in the study group will be compared with the group o patients who undergo the bone marrow stimulation technique alone. The effi