Fig. 4

a Safranin O staining of chondral lesions treated with or without TEC. Bar = 1 mm (upper). Bar = 200 um (lower). Regardless of skeletal maturity, the defects treated with TEC are completely filled with Safranin O positive repair tissue with good tissue integration. b Modified ICRS score for repair cartilage in skeletally immature and mature recipients. The TEC group exhibits significantly higher scores than does the untreated control group, regardless of maturity. *; p < 0.05, **; p < 0.01. Quoted and modified from Shimomura et al., Biomaterials 2010