Surgeons making reconstruction choices for an injured ACL can consider both bone-tendon-bone grafts and hamstring autografts as equally viable options in regards to healing, as reported in research today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.
"We compared the graft-tunnel motion of patients receiving either kind of graft, and noted both groups had similar graft motion at six weeks and one year from surgery, both ranged between 1-2 mm," commented Justin W. Arner, MD, from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). "Often surgeons will recommend earlier return to play in patients receiving a BTB graft, but with these findings we cannot support the commonly perceived assumption of earlier healing with BTB.
