Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/26443
Appears in Collections:Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Syndesmotic Internal Brace™ for anatomic distal tibiofibular ligament augmentation
Author(s): Regauer, Markus
Mackay, Gordon
Lange, Mirjam
Kammerlander, Christian
Bocker, Wolfgang
Keywords: Syndesmosis injury
Rotational instability
Stabilization
Anatomic repair
InternalBraceTM
Surgical technique
Issue Date: 18-Apr-2017
Date Deposited: 22-Dec-2017
Citation: Regauer M, Mackay G, Lange M, Kammerlander C & Bocker W (2017) Syndesmotic Internal Brace™ for anatomic distal tibiofibular ligament augmentation. World Journal of Orthopedics, 8 (4), pp. 301-309. https://doi.org/10.5312/wjo.v8.i4.301
Abstract: Reconstruction of unstable syndesmotic injuries is not trivial, and there is no generally accepted treatment guidelines. Thus, there still remain considerable controversies regarding diagnosis, classification and treatment of syndesmotic injuries. Syndesmotic malreduction is the most common indication for early re-operation after ankle fracture surgery, and widening of the ankle mortise by only 1 mm decreases the contact area of the tibiotalar joint by 42%. Outcome of ankle fractures with syndesmosis injury is worse than without, even after surgical syndesmotic stabilization. This may be due to a high incidence of syndesmotic malreduction revealed by increasing postoperative computed tomography controls. Therefore, even open visualization of the syndesmosis during the reduction maneuver has been recommended. Thus, the most important clinical predictor of outcome is consistently reported as accuracy of anatomic reduction of the injured syndesmosis. In this context the TightRope® system is reported to have advantages compared to classical syndesmotic screws. However, rotational instability of the distal fibula cannot be safely limited by use of 1 or even 2 TightRopes®. Therefore, we developed a new syndesmotic InternalBraceTM technique for improved anatomic distal tibiofibular ligament augmentation to protect healing of the injured native ligaments. The InternalBraceTM technique was developed by Gordon Mackay from Scotland in 2012 using SwiveLocks® for knotless aperture fixation of a FiberTape® at the anatomic footprints of the augmented ligaments, and augmentation of the anterior talofibular ligament, the deltoid ligament, the spring ligament and the medial collateral ligaments of the knee have been published so far. According to the individual injury pattern, patients can either be treated by the new syndesmotic InternalBraceTM technique alone as a single anterior stabilization, or in combination with one posteriorly directed TightRope® as a double stabilization, or in combination with one TightRope® and a posterolateral malleolar screw fixation as a triple stabilization. Moreover, the syndesmotic InternalBraceTM technique is suitable for anatomic refixation of displaced bony avulsion fragments too small for screw fixation and for indirect reduction of small posterolateral tibial avulsion fragments by anatomic reduction of the anterior syndesmosis with an InternalBraceTM after osteosynthesis of the distal fibula. In this paper, comprehensively illustrated clinical examples show that anatomic reconstruction with rotational stabilization of the syndesmosis can be realized by use of our new syndesmotic InternalBraceTM technique. A clinical trial for evaluation of the functional outcomes has been started at our hospital.
DOI Link: 10.5312/wjo.v8.i4.301
Rights: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
WJO-8-301.pdfFulltext - Published Version2.7 MBAdobe PDFView/Open



This item is protected by original copyright



A file in this item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons

Items in the Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

The metadata of the records in the Repository are available under the CC0 public domain dedication: No Rights Reserved https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

If you believe that any material held in STORRE infringes copyright, please contact library@stir.ac.uk providing details and we will remove the Work from public display in STORRE and investigate your claim.