By Madeline Kennedy (Reuters Health) – People receiving a graft of their own knee cartilage cells may be better off returning to full weight bearing after six weeks instead of the standard eight, a small study suggests. Knee surgery patients put on a six-week recovery track were able to get back to work and other activities like sports more quickly, and even reported slightly better results at 24 months than those who had followed an eight-week recovery plan after surgery, researchers report in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. People with damaged cartilage in their knees can undergo so-called matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation, or MACI, surgery to fix the defects that cause pain and swelling.