Endoscopic Images of My Left Knee ACL surgery

knee1.jpg 168.86 KB

knee2.jpg 176.10 KB

The 2 bottom pictures in the left image shows that there is no ACL ( Anterior Cruciate Ligament ) which is normally present across the gaping hole :-) The smooth whitish images in both the pictures show the meniscus which is the cartilage layer between the thigh bone (femur) and the major bone connecting the knee to the ankle (tibia). The meniscus was not damaged, it is quite common to damage the meniscus when one tears ones ACL.

The two images ( 2nd and 3rd from last ) in the second image shows some steel structures, the first among them has steel teeths which brushes the holes that the surgeon creates on the tibia and the femur. The other image shows a steel structure used to drill the holes. The bloody image ( the last one ) on the right image shows the reconstructed ACL ( the faint white patch ). The took a portion of my left hamstring and used that to do the reconstruction. This process is called autograft ( since it is the patients own tissue that is being used ).