Shortening of the patellar tendon length does not influence the patellofemoral alignment in a cadaveric model.
BACKGROUND
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction with the use of autograft tissue represents the standard treatment. The use of a bone-patellar tendon-bone transplant for symptomatic ACL deficiency achieves good long-term results. The purpose of the study was to investigate in a cadaveric model whether reproducible patellar tendon shortening changes the patellofemoral alignment.


METHODS
Using five cadaveric knees, an MRI investigation was performed with the patellar tendon left unchanged, shortened 5 mm and shortened 10 mm, respectively, in both 20 and 45 degrees of knee flexion. The lateral patellofemoral and the congruence angles were measured and compared using a one-way analysis of variance for repeated measurements.


RESULTS
Shortening the patella tendon by approximately 20% did not significantly influence the patellofemoral alignment.


CONCLUSIONS
Although anterior cruciate ligament-reconstruction using the patellar tendon has become a standard procedure, postoperative problems such as anterior knee pain, and patellofemoral osteoarthritis occur quite often. In this cadaver study we did not find a significant difference for the patellofemoral alignment, irrespective of the patellar tendon length.
Muellner
T
T
Department of Surgery, General Hospital Tulln, Alter Ziegelweg 10, 3430 Tulln an der Donau, Austria.
Menth-Chiari
W A
WA
Funovics
M
M
Metz
V
V
Vécsei
V
V
Engebretsen
L
L
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005269:Femur / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010329:Patella / Q000502:physiology*; D013710:Tendons / Q000601:surgery