Biomechanical analysis of anterior cruciate ligament graft substitutes

We report the elastic properties of human normal anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in comparison with various ACL graft substitutes such as central or medial or lateral one third of patellar tendon, semitendinosus, meniscal tissues, tendoachilles, iliotibial band in cigarette rolled, untwisted and different twisted forms for arthroscopy guided ACL reconstruction, using the double transducer ultrasonic pulse transmission technique. The elasticity and rigidity parameters derived, were compared by taking ACL as being equal to 100 percent. Our results indicated that the strength of the graft substitute depended upon number of collagen bundles per unit area and elastic properties depended upon the pretensioning of the graft. The iliotibial band twisted six times was found to be isoelastic with normal ACL.