[Source: Science Daily.com]
New technology has made it possible for surgeons to reconstruct ACL tears in young athletes without disturbing the growth plate.
John Xerogeanes, MD, chief of the Emory Sports Medicine Center, and colleagues in the laboratory of Allen R. Tannenbaum, PhD, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, have developed 3-D MRI technology that allows surgeons to pre-operatively plan and perform anatomic anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery.
ACL tears are one of the most common injuries in children who participate in sports including football, basketball, soccer and gymnastics. Traditional treatment for ACL injuries in kids has been rehabilitation, wearing a brace and staying out of athletics until the child stops growing — usually in the mid-teens — and ACL reconstruction surgery could then safely be performed.
“The problem with doing surgery on a young child is that if you damage the growth plate, you can cause a growth disturbance,” says Xerogeanes, an associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedics at Emory University School of Medicine.
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