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Transtibial ACL reconstruction technique may yield less accurate femoral tunnel placement
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Researchers compared results of a transtibial femoral tunnel placement technique for ACL reconstruction with the anteromedial portal and the outside-in techniques and found the transtibial drilling technique produced more highly positioned femoral tunnels in the low-to-high direction.
“The transtibial technique of anatomic reconstruction resulted in more highly positioned femoral tunnels in the low-to-high direction than did the anteromedial portal and outside-in techniques,” Young-Soo Shin, MD, and colleagues wrote in the study abstract. “However, no significant differences in the femoral tunnel location were observed in the deep-to-shallow direction.”
For the evaluation, Shin and colleagues used in vivo 3-D knee CT scans taken immediately after 153 patients underwent single-bundle ACL reconstruction where surgeons used one of three femoral tunnel drilling techniques: a transtibial technique, anteromedial portal technique or an outside-in technique.
They measured the femoral tunnels using “an anatomical coordinate axis method in the low-to-high and deep-to-shallow directions of the distal femur at 90° of knee flexion,” according to the abstract.
Disclosure: The authors received funds from the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
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