COMPARISON BETWEEN MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING FINDINGS AND KNEE STABILITY - MEASUREMENTS AFTER ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT REPAIR WITH AND WITHOUT AUGMENTATION - A 5- TO 7-YEAR FOLLOW-UP OF 52 PATIENTS
T. Grontvedt et al., COMPARISON BETWEEN MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING FINDINGS AND KNEE STABILITY - MEASUREMENTS AFTER ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT REPAIR WITH AND WITHOUT AUGMENTATION - A 5- TO 7-YEAR FOLLOW-UP OF 52 PATIENTS, American journal of sports medicine, 23(6), 1995, pp. 729-735
We compared magnetic resonance imaging findings with knee stability me
asurements in a group of 52 patients 5 to 7 years after repair of an a
cute anterior cruciate ligament rupture. The patients underwent one of
three surgical procedures: nonaugmented repair using the Palmer techn
ique, repair with synthetic augmentation, and repair with biologic aug
mentation. The appearances of the menisci, subchondral bone, and carti
lage were also assessed. Of the patients with clinically stable knees
in the nonaugmented repair group, the repaired ligament appeared to be
present and intact in 54% (7 of 13) of the patients. In the group wit
h the repair augmented with the ligament augmentation device, 33% (4 o
f 12) demonstrated repair integrity, whereas in the group with patella
r tendon augmentation of the repair, 82% (14 of 17) of the patients wi
th clinically stable knees had intact ligaments on magnetic resonance
imaging. Twelve patients had new and complete ruptures of one of the m
enisci, nine of which occurred in unstable knees. Thirteen patients ha
d subcortical bone changes in the femoral condyles. Eight of these kne
es had major degenerative cartilage changes overlying the bone changes
. Magnetic resonance imaging signals in the repaired ligament augmente
d with the patellar tendon were highly predictive of clinical stabilit
y, but the integrity of the nonaugmented and ligament augmentation dev
ice-augmented anterior cruciate ligament repairs did not closely corre
late with the clinical findings.