AHMET ISSIN, Ali ÖNER, HAKAN SOFU, Hakan YURTEN

Comparison of freeze-dried tibialis anterior allograft and four-strand hamstring autograft in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Purpose: The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of the patients who underwent primary anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery with either hamstring autograft or freeze-dried tibialis anterior allograft, which performed by the same surgeon using the same ﬁxation technique. Methods: In this retrospective study, patients who had primary ACL reconstruction using either fourstrand hamstring autograft (FSH) or freeze-dried irradiated tibialis anterior allograft (FDT) between 2012 and 2015 were evaluated. Patients who were skeletally mature with a minimum follow-up of 24 months and who had no previous surgery from the affected knee were included; patients who had multiple ligament injuries or chondral lesions over Outerbridge grade 2 were excluded from the study. Patients were grouped according to the graft type used in ACL reconstruction. Tegner activity scale and Lysholm knee scoring scale were used to assess patients' activity levels and functional status preoperatively and at the ﬁnal follow-up. KT-2000 arthrometer measurements were done at the ﬁnal follow-up to evaluate anterior laxity. Results: There were 27 patients (mean age 27 ± 8.9 years) in the FSH group and 36 patients (mean age 27.1 ± 6.7 years) in the FDTgroup. The mean follow-uptimewas 38.2 ± 3.5 months for the FSH group and 41 ± 6.1 months for the FDTgroup. There were no statistically signiﬁcant differences between the groups when preoperative and postoperative Tegner-Lysholm scores were compared (Tegner P ¼ 0.583, 0.742; Lysholm P¼0.592, 0.249). The mean anteroposteriorlaxityand side-to-side differences measured by KT2000 were 4.1 mm and 2.1 mm for the FSH group, respectively; 4.2 mm and 2.2 mm for the FDT group, respectively. There was not a statistically signiﬁcant difference (P ¼ 0.745, 0.562 respectively). Conclusions: Primary ACL reconstruction with a single loop freeze-dried irradiated tibialis anterior allograft revealed comparable results with four-strand hamstring autograft in non-athlete patients.

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