A BIOMECHANICAL EVALUATION OF ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT RECONSTRUCTION IN RESPONSE TO ROTATIONAL LOADS

摘要

A successful reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) after its injury should restore the kinematics of the intact knee, as well as reproduce the in-situ force in this ligament. While ACL reconstruction has been successful to limit anterior tibial translation under anterior loads applied to the tibia (1, 2), the same cannot be said about more complex leading conditions that include valgus and internal tibial torques. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate an ACL reconstructed knee under both anterior tibial loads, as well as combined valgus and internal tibial torque. A robotic/universal force-moment sensor (UFS) testing system was utilized to determine multiple degree of freedom (DOF) knee kinematics and in-situ forces in the intact ACL, as well as the ACL replacement graft. Since ACL grafts are placed in the center of the knee to resist anterior tibial loads, it was hypothesized that ACL reconstruction would not adequately resist rotational torque.