Donor site morbidity is higher when comparing bone–tendon–bone vs 4-strand semitendinosus/gracilis & all-inside 4-strand semitendinosus for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Abstract

Objectives

To study pain and sensory alterations of 75 (three cohorts of 25 patients) patients that underwent different anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) techniques. The cohorts were divided in the bone–patellar tendon–bone (BTB) autograft, the quadruple strand semitendinosus/gracilis (4ST/G) autograft and the all-inside quadruple strand semitendinosus autograft cohort.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective study to evaluate pain and sensory alterations after surgery. All these patients followed a similar rehabilitation protocol, being 2 years the minimal follow-up time. Pain was characterized by duration and anatomical location and sensory deficits were evaluated concerning duration and affected area. Patients also scored on three different subjective tests: knee walking test (KWT); Lysholm knee scoring scale (LKSS), and International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee Form (IKDC-SKF) and were divided according to its Tegner activity level scale (TALS).

Results

The mean anterior knee pain (AKP) duration amongst the three cohorts was 1.8 ​± ​4.5 months and was smaller in the 4ST/G cohort. The majority of patients of the BTB cohort located pain on the patellar tendon, while patients in the 4ST/G and all-inside cohorts referred that it was diffuse. At 15 days’ post-surgery, hypoesthesia was reported by 56 ​% patients and was higher on the BTB cohort and lower in the all-inside cohort. At 2-year follow-up, the all-inside cohort had no patients with hypoesthesia. In the BTB cohort, the sensitive alterations were only located on the area innervated by the infra-patellar branch of the saphenous nerve (IPBSN). The 4ST/G cohort located the hypoesthesia in the area innervated by the IPBSN and in the area of the lateral sural cutaneous nerve (LSCN). The all-inside group located the sensitive alterations mostly in the LSCN. The KWT was painful in BTB and 4ST/G patients and reported 0 ​% for the all-inside cohort. No statistic significant relevance was found for the IKDC-SKF and LKSS.

Conclusions

All cohorts referred pain and sensitive alterations. Using BTB autograft for ACLR seems to condition a higher number of anterior knee pain and hypoesthesia on medium postoperative follow-up and KWT was more often reported. The 4ST/G group had the smallest duration of AKP. The all-inside cohort showed, globally, a lower number of complaints and a shorter time of symptom persistence, namely in terms of sensory deficits.

Level of evidence

III.