The most common cultivation system for Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation(ACI) is the monolayer culturing. However, this method leads to dedifferentiation of chondrocytes into fibroblast-like characteristics. Reviewing literature I noticed that all ACI protocols have determined a quantitative threshold for total cell number (about 10 million) to bring cells back to the patient's knee while none of them have discussed whether the dedifferentiation stage of the cells should be assessed or not.

Does it mean that we are allowed to use them even if they are no longer displaying chondrocyte characteristics?