Comparison Between Early and Late Retensioning of an Adjustable-Loop Cortical Suspension Device During Hamstring ACL Reconstruction

Nam-Hong Choi; Bong-Seok Yang; Hang-Ki Kang; Kyu-Wan Kim; Han-Bit Kim; Brian N Victoroff

doi:10.1177/23259671211042334

Comparison Between Early and Late Retensioning of an Adjustable-Loop Cortical Suspension Device During Hamstring ACL Reconstruction

Orthop J Sports Med. 2021 Sep 14;9(9):23259671211042334. doi: 10.1177/23259671211042334. eCollection 2021 Sep.

Authors

Nam-Hong Choi¹, Bong-Seok Yang², Hang-Ki Kang¹, Kyu-Wan Kim², Han-Bit Kim², Brian N Victoroff³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Eulji Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Gwangmyeong Sungae Hospital, Gwangmyeong, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Abstract

Background: Biomechanical studies have demonstrated significant loosening of the adjustable-loop device as compared with the fixed-loop device used in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Retensioning of the adjustable loop has been recommended; however, the timing of the retensioning is unknown.

Hypothesis: Early (ER) and late retensioning (LR) will show similar gapping between the femoral tunnel and graft on follow-up magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and similar clinical outcomes.

Study design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods: This study included 101 patients who underwent hamstring anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction using the adjustable-loop device for femoral fixation between June 2016 and January 2018. All patients a had follow-up MRI on postoperative day 1. Patients with revision surgery and those with reinjury after reconstruction were excluded. In the ER group, retensioning and knot tying of the initially tightened adjustable loop were performed after the flip of the button and before the graft was fixed at the tibia. In the LR group, retensioning and knot tying were performed after initial tightening of the adjustable loop and graft fixation at the tibial side. The tunnel-graft gap measured on multiplanar reformatted images of MRI scans was compared between the groups, as were clinical outcomes.

Results: The mean age of the patients at the time of surgery was 30.3 years (range, 14-61 years). ER and knot tying were performed in 56 patients and LR and knot tying in 45. Preoperative characteristics of the 2 groups showed no significant differences. The mean ± SD tunnel-graft gap was 1.5 ± 2.0 mm in the ER group and 5.4 ± 4.0 mm in the LR group (P < .001). There were no significant differences in clinical outcomes between the groups.

Conclusion: ER and knot tying demonstrated less tunnel-graft gap than that of LR. However, there were no differences in clinical outcomes according to the timing of retensioning.

Keywords: adjustable-loop device; anterior cruciate ligament; hamstring tendon graft; retensioning.