GRAFT SITE MORBIDITY WITH AUTOGENOUS SEMITENDINOSUS AND GRACILIS TENDONS

To distinguish between morbidity caused by harvesting semitendinosus a nd gracilis tendons and morbidity associated with anterior cruciate li gament reconstruction surgery, we performed a prospective randomized s tudy using 65 patients who underwent anterior cruciate ligament recons truction using these tendons. The patients underwent either contralate ral (N = 34) or ipsilateral (N = 31) graft harvest. For the nonoperate d knees in the ipsilateral harvest group, isometric and isokinetic str ength of the quadriceps and hamstring muscles increased to approximate ly 120% of the preoperative value at 12 months after surgery. Compared with these knees, the tendon harvest did not affect quadriceps muscle strength at all. However, harvest did decrease hamstring muscles stre ngth for 9 months after surgery. The graft harvest in the knees with a nterior cruciate ligament reconstruction also did not significantly af fect quadriceps muscle strength, but it did significantly decrease ham string muscles strength only at 1 month. Activity-related soreness at the donor site was rarely restricting and resolved by 3 months. This s tudy demonstrated that the semitendinosus and gracilis tendon graft is a reasonable choice to minimize the donor site morbidity in ligament reconstruction using autografts.