A new technique of harvesting patellar tendon autografts for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

A new surgical technique to uniformly harvest the middle one-third of the patellar tendon for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction is described. The technique uses a guide system of 8 templates of varying widths to guide the saw cuts and "collared," depth-controlled saw blades and drill bits to produce a standard cutting and drilling depth. This kind of template system lessens the risks of graft harvesting complications such as patella fracture, bone graft fragmentation, suture pull out, and judgment errors pertaining to graft depth, length, or width. The Patellar Tendon Graft Guide was used to obtain a patellar tendon graft in 65 patients. Fifty-nine arthroscopic-assisted and 6 open anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions were performed. Of the 65 grafts harvested, 63 consistently demonstrated bone portions 20 mm in length, 7 mm in depth, and a width corresponding to the template chosen (usually 10 mm). Two grafts supposed to be 10 mm in width turned out to be 9 mm in width because of a technique related problem.