This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Allografts can produce good outcomes in ACL repair for young patients

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. —Allografts can produce good clinical outcomes and a low failure rate in young, active patients who undergo ACL reconstruction, according to research presented at the Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting, here.

“You need to know where the grafts are, whether they are irradiated or processed, you have to slow down the rehab,” Thomas R. Carter, MD, said.

Carter and colleagues performed ACL reconstruction on 42 patients with an average perioperative age of 17 years, 7 months. They used fresh-frozen, non-irradiated tibialis for 26 patients and Achilles tendon allografts from a single tissue bank for 16 patients during a 3-year period. Isolated ACL reconstruction was performed in 24 cases while 13 patients required simultaneous meniscus repair and 5 patients need concurrent partial meniscectomy. Average follow-up was 64 months. Metrics of evaluation were IKDC objective and subjective forms, KT-1000 measurement and Lysholm scores.

They found that IKDC objective ratings were an A in 30 cases, B in 6 cases and one failure, noted as D, while KT-1000 differences were 0 mm in three cases, 1 mm in 23 cases, 2 mm in 8 cases, 3 mm in one case and one failure. The average IKDC subjective score was 90.2 while the average Lysholm score was 91. 76% of patients believed they returned to their preoperative level of activity. The lone failure was a tibialis graft that tore at 13 months postoperatively.

“My own feelings are, though, I still don’t put these in contact sports and pro athletes unless they request it,” Carter said. —by Christian Ingram

Reference:

Carter TR. Paper #SS-16. Presented at: Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting; May 1-3, 2014; Hollywood, Fla.

Disclosure: Carter receives royalties from Arthrex, is a paid speaker for Arthrex, Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation and Regeneration Technologies, and receives research support from Regeneration Technologies and the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation.