The cruciate ligaments are the central pillars of stabilization of the knee joint. Their main task is to secure the knee joint compared with braking and accelerating actions and rotational movements. Injuries of the cruciate ligaments affect around 10% of the Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL).

Symptoms

After the accident, the knee is often swollen and diffusely in painful. The mobility is limited. With increasing load, the knee may feel unstable and be uncontrollable in certain movements and bend away.

Causes

Injuries to the PCL caused mostly by a violent backward displacement of the tibia relative to the femur, for example by direct impact trauma to the shin bone from the front.

Diagnosis

On clinical examination, there is a positive posterior drawer test among the other tests. The diagnosis is made by clinical examination of the doctor and an MRI. In addition, often have to be made in the posterior drawer by X additional so-called “stress view”.

Conservative treatment

With early and correct diagnosis, PCL injury has a good spontaneous healing tendency with conservative treatment. The prerequisite for this is the very consistent wearing a special PTS Rail ®, which permanently supports the lower leg forward. An indication for surgery arises when the “posterior drawer test” despite several weeks of conservative treatment is positive.

Surgical treatment

Surgical treatment of PCL rupture takes place today – similar to ACL rupture. It is performed arthroscopically and hamstring tendon graft is used for the ligament replacement.

Injuries to the PCL are caused by a violent backward displacement of the tibia relative to the femur, for example by direct impact trauma to the shin bone from the front. This often occurs in road traffic accidents, but also can occur during sports or everyday injuries. With early and correct diagnosis of the PCL injury, a good spontaneous healing is possible by conservative treatment, unlike an ACL injury. Only when conservative treatment fails, a surgery is recommended.

Current surgical procedures

In the surgical treatment of PCL rupture, the body’s own cruciate ligament is replaced with hamstrng tendon graft (semitendinosus and gracilis tendon). The surgery is carried out as in the ACL reconstruction through a small incision (2-3 cm) above the inside head of the tibia just below the knee joint, the gentle removal of the two tendons. These are then prepared in a specific board, to be later considered as a 4-fold bundles to the joint