Injury of articular cartilage can be classified into acute injury and chronic degenerative osteoarthritis Acute mechanical trauma on articular cartilage causes injuries that are divided into three distinct types based on the depth of injury: microdamage, chondral fracture, osteochondral fracture and each type has different potential of healing response and long-term prognosis. Articular cartilage undergoes degradation in response to a number of stimuli and eventually degenerative osteoarthritic changes will progress. The extent of initial injury to the articular cartilage is the most important factor affecting the long-term outcome of the healing response and other variables such as the size of lesion, site, age, activity level, obesity, limb alignment are also important factors. In this review, the pathophysiology that occurs within articular cartilage after different injuries and the effect of nonsurgical treatment mainly in physicochemical aspect and biological aspect will be discussed.