[Reinforcement of freshly glued or sutured rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament using the semitendinous tendon. Indications and early results].

Inopportune rupture forms deteriorate the prognosis after reconstructive operations on the anterior cruciate ligament. In order to improve the treatment results, we apply fibrin glue on intraligamentous ruptures and reinforce the reconstruction result with a distally fixed semitendinosus tendon graft. In old ruptures with beginning degenerative changes on the rupture stumps we refix the rest of the cruciate ligament as a posterolateral ligament part through transosseous sutures and also use the semitendinosus tendon as a reinforcement graft. 19 of the 26 cruciate ligaments treated in this way were stable at the reexamination which took place 9 months after the operation on a average. 7 remaining instabilities are due to degenerative changes of both the tendon graft and the reconstructed rests of the cruciate ligaments: this could be proved by CT-studies. Using a tendon graft in combination with alloplastic materials ought to improve the postoperative results in future.