Bone-block transfer of the medial head of the gastrocnemius for posterior cruciate insufficiency.

An operation is described in which the medial head of the gastrocnemius is firmly fixed by a cancellous screw, through an attached bone block, to the medial femoral condyle to serve as an intraarticular graft for the control of chronic posterior instability of the knee. This procedure was done in eight patients, with a follow-up of twenty-nine to forty-eight months. The delay from injury to reconstruction averaged forty-two months (range, five to eighty-four months). At follow-up, stability was improved in all of the eight patients and the result was rated as good or excellent in six of them. One failure was due to unrelieved pain and in another patient a second injury led to reoperation. Because minimum immobilization is necessary, the postoperative care with this procedure is simplified and the period of rehabilitation is shorter.