Characterizing the Porcine Knee as a Biomechanical Surrogate Model of the Human Knee to Study the Anterior Cruciate Ligament

摘要

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) provides a complex role to knee stability.Traumatic injury to this structure causes abnormal joint kinematics which poses significant socioeconomic problems.Lost joint stability is linked to long-term degenerative joint disease.In an attempt to restore the functional role of the ACL, reconstruction is performed.Unfortunately, current reconstruction methods have limitations and fail to reduce the likelihood of early onset osteoarthritis.Advances in technology have allowed researches an opportunity to better assess normal function, injury, and repair.Specifically, the use of robotic technology has made it possible to study the ACL during activities of daily living (ADLs).With the robot, we can convert in vivo kinematic data into reproducible simulated in vivo motions.During kinematic simulations, threedimensional (3D) joint kinetics can be measured, allowing for assessment of normal and ACLdeficient knees, as well as examining limitations of current reconstruction methods.Ideally this would be performed in the human knee, but there are limitations which make this challenging.The goal of the research presented was to develop the porcine knee as a biomechanical model of the human knee to study different aspects of ACL reconstruction.The human ACL is critical to anterior knee stability, so a viable model should function similarly.We found that the porcine knee is also an ACL dependent joint.It accounted for 80%-125% of the anterior force during gait, suggesting the porcine model as a candidate for studying ACL function and different repair techniques.We then examined the viability of two prototype ACL graft materials compared to the current "gold standard" bone-patellar tendonbone (BPTB) graft.We found that the Hybrid graft, a reconstructed porcine dermis matrix with a polymer core, performed the best.It initially restored the anterior force of the native ACL Table of Contents