What Is The Anterior Cruciate Ligament?
It is a ligament located inside the knee joint, small in size but has great functional importance. It is called crossed because it adopts this arrangement in space concerning the so-called posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) and the axes of the knee, both in the frontal and sagittal or lateral planes.
Both cruciate ligaments make up the knee kingpin and control the tibia’s displacements on the femur, both in the anteroposterior direction and rotational. The anterior cruciate ligament has the following function: Stabilize the knee when it rotates.
Does The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tend To Tear?
ACL tears are a common injury. These injuries have increased considerably because of the increase in physical activity in today’s society. This incidence is notably higher in contact sports and those that require turning on the knee, such as football, basketball, or skiing.
Knees with a damaged ACL are predisposed to maniacal and cartilaginous injuries and to the appearance of early degenerative signs that can be irreversible, the solution of which is more difficult in young individuals.
How To Know If It Is Broken?
In the first place, the trauma can be caused by twisting the knee, after which, and during the first hours, pain and inflammation occur. The puncture of the knee with hemarthdrosis (blood in the joint) means, in 80% of cases, an ACL tear.
For an effective diagnosis, it is necessary to carry out, in addition to the clinical examination, a series of complementary tests such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional radiographs, etc. This is because the exploration of an expert professional has much more value as it is more objective. Complementary tests present a high rate of false negatives, especially four weeks after the accident.
Is It Necessary To Operate The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rupture?
ACL Ligament Surgery in Delhi is routinely recommended in patients under 40 years of age if the injury is accompanied by signs of instability at the patient’s examination. In patients over 40 years of age, the indication must be qualified depending on the degree of physical activity or profession.
Still, it will always be the doctor’s criteria that must indicate surgery in each case, adapting a specific solution for each individual. Medical criteria must establish predictive factors that help us determine when surgery should be performed, such as age, level of activity, degree of osteoarthritis in the knee, etc.
If an active and athletic person does not undergo surgical intervention, it can lead to joint instability, meniscus rupture, and, consequently, deterioration in the joint cartilage. The anterior cruciate ligament is cord-shaped.
The treatment will be to avoid episodes of joint instability that may appear during physical activities. Therefore, those patients who present symptoms of anterior instability of the knee during the examination are candidates for surgery.
Patients with an affected ACL may be asymptomatic and free of degenerative changes without surgery if the joint demands are small. Therefore, the parameters to indicate surgery are the following:
Age
Young patients are unlikely to change their activity, and in these cases, reconstructive ligament surgery is the best choice. The threshold above 45 years should not be a contraindication if finds active patients without signs of gonarthrosis who present recurrent episodes of instability.
The Appearance Of An Injury
The appearance of an injury in a patient who had tolerated the lack of the ACL should incline us towards surgical recovery, especially if it is possible to suture the meniscus injury since removing the posterior horn increases the instability of the knee. It favors the appearance of episodes of failure joint cause of degenerative phenomena.
The Speed of the Intervention
Performing ACL Surgery three weeks after the accident reduces the risk of joint stiffness. However, time is not an important factor for the edema to have disappeared and for the knee to regain full range of motion.
ACL Ligament Surgery in Delhi is one of the most frequent and best-known techniques performed in orthopedic surgery. It has become an immediate arthroscopic surgery with excellent results. This type of intervention has a high percentage of very good results and rapid integration of the patient into work and sports life. Its impact can be observed among elite athletes who return to their sports practice after a few months of inactivity.