Your knees bear a significant burden. These moveable joints connect the upper and lower legs and carry a significant degree of your body’s weight. Understandably, this movement and pressure might result in injuries.
The Plano Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Center, sometimes also abbreviated as POMSC, situated in Plano TX stresses that one such injury could be an ACL tear, which might necessitate a surgical procedure known as ACL reconstruction.
ACL Overview
Anatomy
Commonly abbreviated the ACL, the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament is a collection of soft tissue crucial to your knee’s stability. The structure conjoins your thigh and shinbones.
Description
Gradual pressure on the knee or an acute injury might precipitate events called tears. Tears vary in severity. However, moderate to severe tears are serious and, if not promptly addressed, could have discernibly unfavorable consequences.
Risk Factors
Anyone could develop an ACL tear. However, an individual stands a greater chance of developing said maladies if they are active adults, athletes participating in competitive, contact sports, or teens and youths whose growth plates have closed.
Symptoms Of Injury
ACL tears possess the ability to produce numerous physical manifestations such as swelling, pronounced knee pain, structural instability, and mobility limitations.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis is typically confirmed using diagnostic imaging tools like magnetic resonance imaging or computerized tomography scans.
ACL Reconstruction
Usually, moderate to pronounced tears do not heal particularly well on their own or merely by stitching ripped areas back together. Most maladies require reconstruction. However, reconstruction interventions take on several forms including:
Autograft Reconstruction
During this undertaking, surgeons typically extract a portion of your patellar, or kneecap tendon and graft said connective tissue into the damaged ACL. Occasionally, autograft resection might be performed using hamstring or quadriceps tendons. That said, these materials typically do not usually produce the same positive results as patellar tendons.
Though one of the more common types of reconstructions undertaken, autograft procedures require significant incisions and yield more post-operative knee pain than other procedures.
Xenograft Reconstruction
Surgeons complete xenograft reconstruction by remediating a damaged ACL with connective tissue hailing from non-human sources like animals. At the current time, such efforts are being performed on humans on a trial basis.
Synthetic Reconstruction
These grafts are comprised of synthetic materials. Such undertakings are still in the experimental phase. However, many orthopedic surgeons have found that experimental trials have not produced the same results as autograft procedures.
Allograft Reconstruction
This endeavor is completed when surgeons extract connective tissue from deceased persons. These procedures are considered less invasive and precipitate less post-operative knee pain than autograft efforts. That said, the recipient stands at a slightly increased risk of developing potentially serious infections.
Reaching Out To Us
If you have sustained a middling to more severe ACL injury, we invite you to contact our Plano TX offices. Our team of trained knee specialists can review your case and recommend the procedure most befitting your needs.
Call POSMC today!
To schedule an appointment with one our specialists, contact our scheduling department at 972-250-5700 or request an appointment online.
POSMC is a full-service medical facility specializing in the evaluation and treatment of orthopedic injuries. The practice is led by a group of 12 board-certified and fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeons and a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician. Contact us today!