Patent ID: 7217294

Claim:
A method for treatment of injury of an articular cartilage and for repair and restoration of damaged, injured, diseased or aged cartilage to a functional hyaline cartilage, said method comprising steps: a) preparing a three-dimesional acellular matrix implant wherein said acellular matrix implant is a sponge, porous scaffold, honeycomb scaffold, honeycomb lattice, gel, sol-gel or thermo-reversible hydrogel, said implant prepared from a material selected from the group consisting of a Type I collagen, a Type II collagen, a Type IV collagen, a polymer of an aromatic organic acid or a copolymer thereof, gelatin, a bioactive peptide, a growth factor, cytokine, polycaprolactone, polyamino acid, a gel, a sol-gel, a hydrogel, a thermo-reversible gelling hydrogel (TRGH), a copolymer thereof and a combination thereof; b) depositing a layer of a biologically acceptable bottom sealant rapidly gelling for from 30 second to about 15 minutes from a flowable liquid or paste to a load-bearing gel over a bottom of an articular cartilage lesion to protect the lesion cavity from blood-borne agents, migrating cells and cell debris; c) implanting said implant into an articular cartilage lesion cavity in situ; d) depositing a layer of a biologically acceptable top sealant to seal the lesion cavity wherein said top sealant seals the implant within said cavity, protects the implant and promotes a formation of a superficial cartilage layer; and wherein said top or bottom sealant is selected from the group consisting of gelatin and di-aldehyde starch mixture, 4-armed pentaerythritol tetra-thiol and polyethylene mixture, polyethylene glycol-co-poly(α-hydroxy acid) diacrylate, a mixture of a copolymer of polyethylene glycol with polylactide, polyglycolide, polyhydroxybutyrate or a polymer of aromatic organic acid, polyethylene glycol derivatized with succinimidyl ester or thiol, a cross-linked polyethylene glycol with collagen, and a cross-linked polyethylene glycol with methyl collagen.