Dr. John Campbell of The Institute for Foot & Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy Discusses Use of Biocartilage to Repair Ankle Injury

A lot of people, especially those who are involved in sports, suffer ankle injuries. They can be painful, frustrating and debilitating, but there are some new procedures that can make a world of difference.

Michelle Andes is the mother of an active 4-year-old boy, with another little boy on the way. The former collegiate softball player has always had issues with her ankles, and then in 2010, suffered an ankle injury.

"I ended up playing wally ball, which is volleyball on a racquetball court, had a really bad ankle sprain (and) tore all the ligaments on the outside of my ankle," Andes said.

Andrea had traditional surgery, but it didn't work for someone so active.

"It turned out that I couldn't run. My ankle would swell. Between trying to work out and do other things, I just couldn't handle the pain and swelling," Andes said.

So Andes came to see Dr. John Campbell, a top rated foot and ankle surgeon with The Institute for Foot and Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, MD. He suggested a relatively new procedure involving something called biocartilage extracellular matrix.

"In layman's terms, that is a commercially available cartilage material from cadavers," Dr. Campbell. "It's almost like a powder. What we typically do is we mix that with the patient's own bone cells and bone marrow stem cells, which is a new technique, and to try to use the patient's own cells to use this as a graft, almost like a putty."

According to Dr. Campbell, the recovery can take a while up to six months to get back to full strength and mobility. Andes said it wasn't easy, but definitely worth it, especially with a new addition on the way.

"We're just in general a very go, go, go family. We're always at the park. We're always going to a ball game, so it'll be nice to be able to do, versus kind of stand around and watch," Andes said.

To view Mercy’s Dr. John Campbell’s interview regarding biocartilage for ankle repair, click here.