[Histological diagnostics in joint pathology due to increasing regenerative therapeutic strategies - special consideration for cartilage damage].

Orthopedic and trauma surgery are currently confronted with significant changes in their interventional and therapeutic strategies, especially in knee surgery. Minimally invasive and reconstructive techniques lead not only to modifications of the repertoire of interventional methods but also of the indications and questions for histopathological diagnostics. The classical problems in knee surgery remain important issues, which are traumatic, degenerative, and infectious lesions. In addition, questions regarding regeneration and integration of cell-material constructs will become more and more important in the future. Furthermore, questions regarding the regenerative potential of an implantation site for such constructs and the morphological quality of harvested tissue for the in vitro cell expansion of autologous cells are becoming increasingly important. The autologous chondrocyte transplantation is a good example of the relevance of the histopathological re-evaluation of the regenerated tissue for a better understanding of the pathophysiology of reconstructive therapies. It becomes clear that for specific aims based on reconstructive therapies, new scoring systems should be established for the histopathological routine diagnostic service. Furthermore, there is need for the definition of further histopathological criteria, which will help to optimize the differential application of reconstructive strategies via tissue engineering. The present report gives a short overview of the modifying requirements on the histopathological diagnostics in specimens from knee-surgery but does not claim to be exhaustive.