Can You Regrow Cartilage in Your Knee or Hip?

Patients ask me this almost every week: “Is there anything that can regrow the cartilage in my knee?” Sometimes they’ve read about stem cells or a new gel, and sometimes they just hope there’s something better than what they’ve been told so far. It’s a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer.

The short answer

No. Nothing available today regrows the cartilage in a knee or hip with arthritis. Not a shot, not a pill, not a supplement. That isn’t because no one has tried. It’s because arthritis is a much bigger problem than a layer of cartilage wearing thin.

What a shot would have to do

When patients ask me about regrowing cartilage, this is how I explain it. For an injection to truly fix an arthritic joint, it would have to do all of these things at once:

1. Straighten the leg, or reshape the hip. Most knee arthritis wears down one side of the joint, because that’s where your weight lands. In the hip, the shape of the ball and socket decides where the pressure falls. Today, changing either one means surgery to cut and realign or reshape the bone.
2. Bring in a blood supply. Cartilage has a limited one. Blood is how the body heals, which is why cartilage heals so poorly on its own.
3. Rebuild the cartilage that’s already worn, as the smooth, slippery surface you were born with, not scar tissue.
4. Turn off whatever wore it out. That can be inflammation, an old injury, an autoimmune condition, or the arthritis that runs in your family.
5. Hold up under your body weight, step after step, for years.

Nothing in a syringe does all of that. That’s why a cartilage-regrowing shot doesn’t exist.

What about the “German gel”?

Since 2025, posts have claimed that scientists in Germany made a gel you inject into the knee to regrow cartilage, with no surgery and no rehab. The product behind those posts is real. The claims aren’t.

• It isn’t a shot. The product, ChondroFiller, is placed during keyhole (arthroscopic) surgery, followed by rehab.
• It isn’t new. It has been sold in Europe since 2013.
• It isn’t for arthritis. It’s designed to patch a small, single area of damaged cartilage, not a joint that’s worn throughout.
• It isn’t FDA approved, so it isn’t available in the United States.

So it’s a real product aimed at a different patient, and it isn’t a way around arthritis.

One damaged spot is different

There is one situation where the conversation changes: a younger patient with a single damaged spot of cartilage, often from an injury, and healthy cartilage everywhere else. That isn’t the same as arthritis.

These patients usually do well without surgery, and that’s how I treat them. Surgical options exist for the right patient, such as an arthroscopy (scope), microfracture, and cartilage grafting. In my practice, I keep treating without surgery for as long as it’s working. If the knee becomes severe, the next step is a partial or total knee replacement. For more on the difference between a damaged spot and arthritis, see can arthritis be reversed?

What does help

Cartilage won’t grow back, but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck. Most people with knee or hip arthritis do well with a step-by-step plan, moving to the next step only when the last one stops working:

1. Start simple: physical therapy, medication, and for the knee, a brace.
2. Then injections: cortisone for the knee or hip, gel for the knee, and PRP for the knee or hip.
3. Then replacement, when the joint still limits your life: a partial or total knee replacement, or a hip replacement.

Where PRP fits

I offer PRP for the knee and the hip. It doesn’t regrow cartilage, but in the right patient it can help with pain. Who it suits, what to expect, and what it costs are all on my PRP page. If you’ve been reading about stem cell injections, I cover those separately in stem cell injections and other regenerative treatments.

If you’d like to know where your knee or hip stands, I see patients in Washington, D.C. and Germantown, Maryland. Request an appointment.

This article is general education, not advice about your specific joint.