Abstract: Introduction: Anterior cruciate ligament injury is a common injury, frequently occurs in sport. Anatomic ACL reconstruction with autograft or allografts remains a technically demanding procedure. Fixation of replacement graft can be classified into direct and indirect methods. Graft fixation continues to be a weak link in the early rehabilitation process. Our study aimed to compare clinical and functional results between aperture fixation and suspensory fixation of hamstring graft on femoral side.
Methods: It is a prospective cohort study conducted on 30 patients, 15 patients in each group with at least 1 year follow up, who underwent ACL reconstruction with autogenous hamstring graft at Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Bangalore from January 2018 to May 2019. Patients aged between 20-46 years of both genders were included in study. The aperture fixation group underwent interference screw fixation at both femoral and tibial tunnels. The suspensory fixation group underwent endobutton fixation on the femoral side and interference screw on tibial side. Patients in both the groups were examined prior to surgery and regularly till 12 months post-surgery. They were compared for clinical and functional outcome with Tegner Lysholm knee score.
Results: There was statistically significant improvement in Tegner Lysholm knee score from pre-operative to 12 months post-operative with p value <0.001 in both groups, whereas there was no statistically significance difference in post-operative scores at the end of 1 year between the two groups.
Conclusion: The clinical and functional results in our study clarified that both techniques are effective and safe methods for femoral hamstring fixation in ACL-reconstruction. However, further studies are needed to confirm these findings during a longer follow up.
