An Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Technique With 4-Strand Semitendinosus Grafts, Using Outside-In Tibial Tunnel Drilling and Suspensory Fixation Devices.

Abstract

We describe an anatomic single-bundle anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction using a 4-strand semitendinosus graft fixed with 2 Pullup adjustable suspensory fixation systems (SBM, Lourdes, France). Outside-in full tibial tunnel drilling represents a secure option for length management of the graft. The preferred graft choice is a 4-strand semitendinosus autologous graft. A special technique is used to stitch the graft with a figure-of-8 stitch to load the 4 strands. The Pullup adjustable loop is equipped with 2 buttons of different sizes: a small button for the standard Pullup system on the femoral side and a large button for the Pullup XL system on the tibial side. With this method, graft tension is equally distributed among the 4 strands and the graft cannot bottom out in the tibial tunnel in case of inadequate graft length.