Background: This study was undertaken to prospectively analyze, at a mean 11-year follow-up, the clinical and radiographic outcomes in patients undergoing the authors' intra-articular anterior cruciate ligament reconstructive procedure with extra- articular augmentation, and to compare these data with those at 5-year follow-up.
Purpose: The clinical and radiographic outcomes in patients undergoing anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction were analyzed at a mean 11-year follow-up.
Study design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4.
Methods: The authors studied 54 of 60 consecutive high-level sports patients who underwent their anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction technique between 1993 and 1995. The surgical technique uses the hamstring tendons with intact tibial insertions for intra-articular double-stranded reconstruction plus an extra-articular plasty (augmentation) performed with the remnant part of the tendons. Clinical and radiographic evaluations were performed.
Results: After 11 years, the International Knee Documentation Committee score demonstrated good or excellent results (A and B) in 90.7% of patients. Ligament arthrometry using the KT-2000 arthrometer demonstrated that only 2 patients had >5 mm manual maximum side-to-side difference in laxity. The mean Tegner activity score was 4.5, while the mean Lysholm score was 97.3 and the mean subjective score was 90.0%. Radiographic evaluation demonstrated progressive joint narrowing only for the 20 patients having concomitant medial meniscal surgery.
Conclusion: The original technique demonstrates highly satisfactory results. Factors negatively affecting the outcomes are meniscectomy and laxity. In this series, anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with lateral plasty shows maintenance of knee stability at long-term follow-up. Knee osteoarthritis after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with extra-articular tenodesis does not appear to be greater than after anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions without extra-articular augmentation as reported in historical controls.