More Anatomic ACL Surgery

Orthopedics This Week—August 20, 2012

David Altchek, M.D., is an attending orthopedic surgeon and co-chief in the Sports Medicine and Shoulder Service at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). He is also the Medical Director for the New York Mets and a medical consultant for the NBA. Dr. Altchek tells OTW, "As a field we are working on making ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] operations more precise and more anatomic. We have documented in great detail the precise anatomic sites of attachment of the ACL on the tibia and the femur. We then place the graft in these exact locations using new instrumentation that was developed for this purpose. By better reproducing the ACL anatomy we are seeing in the short term (first two-five years) that the patients are more easily and rapidly restoring full motion to the knee and returning to aggressive pivoting sports with more confidence than we had seen previously with the prior versions of ACL reconstruction. We are fortunate to have an enormous, detailed registry of ACL reconstructions at HSS; we have data on 1,700 athletes, more than half of whom are women."