Surgeons describe new ligament in the human knee: Important for ACL tears

A snowHead

Two knee surgeons at University Hospitals Leuven have provided the first full anatomical description of a previously enigmatic ligament in the human knee. The ligament appears to play an important role in patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears.

http://www.kuleuven.be/english/news/new-ligament-discovered-in-the-human-knee

Worth passing on to doctors and such like I would think!

A snowHead

No discussion on this? Interested to know more but not remotely clued up on anatomy myself.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I have to say, it does make me wonder if that is why my knee gave way in August. I certainly found this quite fascinating.

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Quote"The Anatomical Society praised the research as "very refreshing" and commended the researchers for reminding the medical world that, despite the emergence of advanced technology, our knowledge of the basic anatomy of the human body is not yet exhaustive."

To the layman the fact that some anatomical features of the human body are still being discovered when you consider how long it has been studied is a bit surprising. Less surprising understandably for other animal specimens, such as the case of the Komodo dragon where it was only recently discovered following MRI scans that they have venom glands in their mouth never previously documented.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I was chatting to a physio who's coming back into the profession after a long break who's amazed at how the thinking in the subject is changing. She made that point that much of the understanding came from dissection but other forms of research (on the living) are opening up new possibilities & understanding.

She mentioned a theory regarding 'tension'* (?) where soft tissue helps keep joints separated through a muscular like effect so that joints don't actually rub hard against the separating cartilage. The example of a very heavy person stepping down was used as an example of how something else must be going on. It also brings in to question how current surgical interventions might effect things.

Fascinating stuff and I get the feeling that we are close to another step change in our understanding.

*Sorry for the very second hand description.

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PeDaSp,

The anterolateral ligament of the knee isnt really a new discovery. There are some very old operations to stabilise this " new knee ligament" . These ops were, in fact, the precursors to modern ACL reconstruction. It's more of a rediscovery. I'm afraid areas of research interest are often circular eg the resurgence of interest in artificial ligaments which were a disaster in the 80s and early 90s Has been in the news recently and interest once again fading as high profile disasters occurred .

I dare say we will see a flurry of new operations discussed in the media to reconstruct the anterolateral ligament until interest wanes and moves onto something else. It may turn out that it is occasionally useful to repair or reconstruct this area in some failed ACL reconstructions .

Jonathan Bell

Help!!

Surgeons describe new ligament in the human knee: Important for ACL tears

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