Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/915879
W HEN PEDI ATRIC OR THOPEDI S T Paul R. Fleissner isn't seeing patients at Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center, he is looking for innovative ideas that will improve his treatments and results. So when he learned about a new device — the Reveille® Cartilage Processor — that enabled 1-stage, instead of the traditional 2-stage, surgical repair of articular cartilage with autologous tissue, he was intrigued. "I am always looking for ways to improve and achieve better outcomes for my patients," says Dr. Fleissner, who had been trying for years to develop a single-stage repair for cartilage defects. "Nothing that we do is ever perfect, so if we look at what we do critically and try to figure out how to do it better, sometimes we find answers that make a difference." The Reveille processor seemed to fit the bill. It creates autolo- gous tissue grafts in the OR immediately after the cartilage is harvested, so it can be implanted within minutes. It didn't take long before Dr. Fleissner contacted the manufac- turer (Exactech) –for more information and, subsequently, for training. In February 2017, he was the first in the United States to commercially use the Reveille. The patient was a 16-year-old who had dislocated his kneecap and injured a weight-bearing area of the knee while playing On the Cutting Edge of Cartilage Repair 0 6 ❱❱❱❱❱ C O V E R S T O R Y Paul R. Fleissner, Jr., MD: Paul R. Fleissner, Jr., MD, is a board-certified pediatric orthopedic surgeon who has treated sports injuries in children and adolescents at Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center for 27 years. In February 2017, he became the first surgeon in the US to commercially use the Reveille® Cartilage Processor to perform autologous chondrocyte implantation in a single-stage, instead of the traditional two- stage, surgery.