Search almost any clinical page about ankle injuries and you will hit the same figure: roughly half of significant ankle sprains damage cartilage. The Hospital for Special Surgery puts the incidence of talus cartilage lesions at 50 to 70 percent of all acute sprains, on a page last updated in 2016. Vericel Corporation cites approximately 50 percent in the rationale for its new ankle trial.
Then a prospective study scanned 171 acute ankle injuries in athletes with high-field MRI and found cartilage or osteochondral lesions in 14 percent.
