[Source: Daily Mail UK]
Surgeons finally win the Battle of Wounded Knee
A British surgeon has developed a new way to repair injured knees, thanks to the discovery of a part of the joint no one knew existed until last autumn.
The two-in-one operation involves fixing the newly identified anterolateral ligament (ALL) on the outside of the knee, along with the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which runs through the knee from the shin to the back of the thigh.
Damage to the ACL is the commonest type of knee injury, affecting up to 50,000 Britons a year. But surgeons now think that in about 95 per cent of cases it goes hand in hand with damage to the ALL.
Repairing both simultaneously makes recovery quicker, and restores better motion to the joint.
Belgian knee surgeons Dr Steven Claes and Professor Johann Bellemans first announced the existence of the ALL last November. The 4cm ligament runs up the outside of the knee, from the outer side of the thigh to the front of the shin.
They gathered 48 knee joints from human cadavers and painstakingly dissected them over three years.
Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Mr Adrian Wilson at the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who devised the new repair technique with Dr Claes, explains: ‘The ALL is incredibly thin and concealed within tissue. Unless you know where to look, it’s like looking for one thread within a pair of thick curtains.’
Mr Wilson was present at a landmark meeting in Leuven, Belgium, when Dr Claes first revealed his research to his peers. Mr Wilson was there to explain his revolutionary All-Inside technique which has been internationally acclaimed – first reported in The Mail on Sunday. He approached Dr Claes and the two devised the new knee operation. ACL injury tends to occur on the sports field – playing football, hockey, netball or rugby. Damage is usually caused by a twisting move.
Mr Wilson’s replacement procedure involves the removal and grafting of just one hamstring, rather than two of the three that run down the back of the leg, as is the traditional method. The surgeon folds it over – in a concertina-type formation – to create the necessary thickness.
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