Rehabilitation following patellar tendon or ABC prosthetic ligament reconstruction for chronic anterior cruciate ligament deficient knees

In a prospective comparative study, 39 patients underwent ACL reconstruction under arthroscopic control. Twenty patients had reconstruction with a prosthetic ligament, ABC (Surgicraft, Redditch, UK) 19 patients had reconstruction with a free, autogenous, middle one third Patellar tendon. The purpose of this study was to assess any early advantage in using the ABC prosthetic ligament to achieve better function at the end of 6 months of rehabilitation. It is also intended to follow-up these patients in the long term. At the end of rehabilitation there was no statistically significant functional difference between the two groups and any differences in scores was attributed to the higher incidence of extensor lag and pain in the patellar tendon group. We concluded from this initial study that any accelerated rehabilitation, which may follow reconstruction with the ABC prosthetic ligament, is not significant at the end of a 6-month rehabilitation phase when compared to autologous Patellar tendon replacement, and we cannot therefore justify use of prosthetic ligaments on the grounds of rapid rehabitation. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.