Doctors Experiment With New Way of Fixing the A.C.L. (NY Times by CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS)
Anterior cruciate ligaments often tear on the sports field, and after a complete rupture, they are notoriously hard to get to heal.
On Wednesday, doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital announced that they have succeeded in reconnecting A.C.L.s in 10 patients using a novel technique.
Their preliminary results at three months suggest that healing an original A.C.L. without the usual grafts may be a viable option in the future.
Experts were intrigued but cautious.
“This is definitely an advance,” said Dr. Jo Hannafin, a senior attending orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, who was not involved in the experiment.
But, she added, “I don’t think we will know for three to five years whether this technique is really effective or not.”
Each year, roughly 200,000 people injure the A.C.L., which runs diagonally through the middle of the knee and provides stability.
In a standard surgical treatment — performed 100,000 times a year — the ligament is reconstructed with a graft from the patient’s hamstring or patella.
In a preliminary study to assess safety, Dr. Martha Murray and...
