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Anterior cruciate ligament bundle insertions vary between ACL-rupture and non-injured knees

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Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy Aims and scope

Abstract

Purpose

The present study aimed to investigate the three-dimensional topographic anatomy of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) bundle attachment in both ACL-rupture and ACL-intact patients who suffered a noncontact knee injury and identify potential differences.

Methods

Magnetic resonance images of 90 ACL-rupture knees and 90 matched ACL-intact knees, who suffered a noncontact knee injury, were used to create 3D ACL insertion models.

Results

In the ACL-rupture knees, the femoral origin of the anteromedial (AM) bundle was 24.5 ± 9.0% posterior and 45.5 ± 10.5% proximal to the flexion–extension axis (FEA), whereas the posterolateral (PL) bundle origin was 35.5 ± 12.5% posterior and 22.4 ± 10.3% distal to the FEA. In ACL-rupture knees, the tibial insertion of the AM-bundle was 34.3 ± 4.6% of the tibial plateau depth and 50.7 ± 3.5% of the tibial plateau width, whereas the PL-bundle insertion was 47.5 ± 4.1% of the tibial plateau depth and 56.9 ± 3.4% of the tibial plateau width. In ACL-intact knees, the origin of the AM-bundle was 17.5 ± 9.1% posterior (p < 0.01) and 42.3 ± 10.5% proximal (n.s.) to the FEA, whereas the PL-bundle origin was 32.1 ± 11.1% posterior (n.s.) and 16.3 ± 9.4% distal (p < 0.01) to the FEA. In ACL-intact knees, the insertion of the AM-bundle was 34.4 ± 6.6% of the tibial plateau depth (n.s.) and 48.1 ± 4.6% of the tibial plateau width (n.s.), whereas the PL-bundle insertion was 42.7 ± 5.4% of the tibial plateau depth (p < 0.01) and 57.1 ± 4.8% of the tibial plateau width (n.s.).

Conclusion

The current study revealed variations in the three-dimensional topographic anatomy of the native ACL between ACL-rupture and ACL-intact knees, which might help surgeons who perform anatomical double-bundle reconstruction surgery.

Level of evidence

III.

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Availability of data and material

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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Funding

This project was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31771017, 31972924), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (16441908700), the Innovation Research Plan supported by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (ZXWF082101), the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC0110700, 2018YFF0300504, and 2019YFC0120600), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (18ZR1428600), and the Interdisciplinary Program of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (ZH2018QNA06, YG2017MS09).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Dimitris Dimitriou and Diyang Zou have contributed equally to this article.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Orthopaedic Implants and Clinical Translational R&D Center of 3D Printing Technology, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; School of Biomedical Engineering and Med.X Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Diyang Zou, Zhongzheng Wang & Tsung-Yuan Tsai

  2. Department of Orthopedics, Bürgerspital Solothurn, Schöngrünstrasse 42, Solothurn, 4500, Switzerland

    Dimitris Dimitriou & Naeder Helmy

  3. Engineering Research Center of Digital Medicine and Clinical Translation, Ministry of Education, 200030, Shanghai, China

    Diyang Zou, Zhongzheng Wang & Tsung-Yuan Tsai

Authors
  1. Dimitris Dimitriou
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  2. Diyang Zou
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  4. Naeder Helmy
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  5. Tsung-Yuan Tsai
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Contributions

DD: substantial contributions to research design, the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data, drafting the paper. DZ: substantial contributions to research design, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data. ZW: substantial contributions to research design, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data. NH: Critical revision and approval of the final version. T-YT: substantial contributions to research design, acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data. Critical review and approval of the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tsung-Yuan Tsai.

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The authors of this manuscript have nothing to disclose that would bias our work.

Ethical approval

Ethikkommission Nordwest- und Zentralschweiz: 2018-01410.

Code availability

AMIRA 6.5, FEI SVG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA; SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois; MATLAB, MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA.

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Dimitriou, D., Zou, D., Wang, Z. et al. Anterior cruciate ligament bundle insertions vary between ACL-rupture and non-injured knees. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 29, 1164–1172 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00167-020-06122-1

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