Knee surgery can become more bearable for athletes as a new device can help recovery chances. This new device is called GraftBolt and comes as a response to the old practice of fitting screws in the bone. The new technique involves bringing the ligament closer to the bone in a fixed position.
Doctors who study the cases in which the cruciate ligament gets ruptured know that the knee could never fully recuperate and the injury is quite severe. ACL injuries are connected mostly to athletes, but women are also prone to them. In Britain alone there are 11,000 reported cases of torn ligaments.
Kennedy from Celtic and Owen from Manchester United are two of the best known examples of ACL affected football players. The first of the two was treated using normal screws and his professional career was not as prolific as it used to be due to the treatment’s insecure success.
GraftBolt can be a successful response to the common treatment. It was invented by the researchers from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Engineering. The schematics also saw the hand of Martyn Snow, who is a specialist when it comes to cartilages and performing surgery on them.
According to the researchers, the new device helps any further interventions after a successful intervention. Dr. Bin Wang, the leader of the team, said:
The NHS performs around 11,000 ACL reconstructions per year but the procedure is not universally successful, with failure rates of five to 25 per cent often resulting in further surgery and long term problems. The main cause of this is loss of graft fixation within the tibia in the early post-operative period.
GraftBolt was designed to meet the requirements for a better life after the surgery, and also and improved joining of the ligament. Injuries consisting of torn ligaments are some of the most severe as they require a lot of recuperation time, so a good start in this process will inherently mean a good evolution.
