Covering both pediatric and adult populations, this comprehensive text covers the diverse topics related to the health, disease and therapy of articular cartilage of the knee, from basic principles to future directions for research. This vast array of information is arranged into eight sections, encompassing a number of relevant disciplines and covering, in turn, normal articular cartilage, aging and degeneration, evaluation and assessment, non-surgical approaches, surgical approaches, qualitative and quantitative assessment of repair, research into cartilage repair and engineering, and future prospects for therapy. Each chapter is amply referenced and self-contained for independent study and reference. Scoring systems for knee cartilage assessment are included in four appendices as well, rounding out the presentation.