A new ligament has been discovered in the human knee by doctors at University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium.
The new ligament called anterolateral ligament (ALL) is connected to the anterior cruciate ligament or ACL.
Dr. Steven Claes and Dr. Johan Bellemans built on the work done by a French surgeon in 1879 and discovered the ligament which is in the front of the knee. The doctors detailed their results in the Journal of Anatomy.
The two doctors used macroscopic dissection techniques and studied 41 cadaveric knees and found ALL in all the knees except one. While the sample size was small, it reveals that only 3 percent humans do not have ALL in their knees, whereas 97 percent do.
"This study is the first to provide a detailed anatomical description of the anterolateral ligament (ALL) of the human knee. The ALL is found to be a distinct ligamentous structure showing consistent origin and insertion site features in 97% of the dissected specimens," wrote Claes and Bellemans in the Journal of Anatomy.
The study reveals that the doctors' findings could play a pivotal role in how tears in the commonly known ACL are treated. However, per the doctors, more research needs to be conducted before any new technique can be implemented.
"Given its suggested role in common knee instability patterns such as the pivot shift, the precise anatomical knowledge of this enigmatic structure delivered by this study could be highly relevant for clinical practice. However, further research is needed to establish the function of the ALL and to determine its role in clinical knee injuries," note the doctors.
ACL tears are quite commonplace for athletes who are involved in sports like basketball and soccer that exert pressure on the knees. Despite surgery, some patients with previous ACL tears continue to experience pain and buckling of knee because of extreme physical activity.
Previously, the "pivot shift" which caused buckling of knees confused doctors; however, with the discovery of ALL, they can explain pivot shift that follow repaired ACL.
Moreover, the new discovery could also lead to a breakthrough in treatment of ACL tears.
