Instruments for reproducible setting of defects in cartilage and harvesting of osteochondral plugs for standardisation of preclinical tests for articular cartilage regeneration

Background Standardisation is required in research, so are approval procedures for advanced therapy medical products and other procedures for articular cartilage therapies. The process of creating samples needs to be reproducible. The aim of this study was to design, create and validate instruments (1) to create reproducible and accurate defects and (2) to isolate samples in the shape of osteochondral cylinders in a quick, reliable and sterile manner.