Evidence / Sources / E11
Mistry H et al. Autologous chondrocyte implantation in the knee: systematic review and economic evaluation. Health Technol Assess 2017
What it can tell you
That ACI is cost-effective against microfracture across a range of scenarios — an independent national assessment rather than an author group reporting its own series — and that patients whose symptoms had lasted under three years did better. That duration finding recurs independently in the predictor literature, which is why the site treats it as one of the few things worth acting on before surgery.
What it cannot
Anything about rehabilitation: no protocol was compared, and cost-effectiveness is a health-system question, not a recovery one. It also cannot speak past five years — the authors name the absence of longer randomized data as their principal limitation.
Everything on this site that leans on E11 — 3 claims
Stage I · Before“Waiting has a measurable cost: longer symptom duration before surgery predicted worse 5-year sport scores and MRI results, and the health-technology assessment found under three ye…”Stage I · Before [patellofemoral]“Drift. Months of deliberation are months of symptom duration, and duration predicted worse outcomes. Deciding slowly is legitimate; deciding slowly while detraining is the avoidabl…”Stage I · Before [tibiofemoral]“Drift. Months of deliberation are months of symptom duration, and duration predicted worse outcomes. Deciding slowly is legitimate; deciding slowly while detraining is the avoidabl…”
Read it like a sceptic
An economic model's output is only as good as the assumptions fed into it, and those assumptions are national, not personal.
"Cost-effective" is not "effective for you". It answers a question a health service asks, not one a patient asks.
Population
ACI vs microfracture
Selection policy
Sources enter the registry through docs/research — the evidence table records design, population, and size for every entry, and pages cannot cite anything outside it.