Revision cruciate ligament surgery with retention of femoral interference screws.

Abstract

As the popularity of cruciate ligament reconstruction continues to escalate, the need for revision surgery has also increased. Revision cruciate ligament surgery is often associated with difficult technical challenges including removing previously placed femoral interference screws. Not only can this hardware be difficult to remove, interference screw extraction often creates a large bony defect immediately adjacent to the revised femoral tunnel that can jeopardize the fixation of the new cruciate ligament graft. It is often possible to perform revision cruciate ligament reconstruction without removing femoral interference screws. This technical note provides several examples of this technique. Routine removal of femoral interference screws during revision cruciate ligament surgery is often not necessary.