If you are unlucky enough to ruppture your Posterior Cruciate or Anterior Cruciate ligament there is a new option to get you up and running much faster. Traditional knee reconstruction can take a year before the knee is able to handle running.

The radical surgery is known as LARS (ligament augmentation and reconstruction system). LARS has been in clinical use for 15 years with excellent results. The operation repairs the torn ligament with a durable synthetic fibre, dramatically reducing the amount of time required to recover from such an injury.

LARS artificial ligaments are made from an industrial strength polyester fiber which has the ideal characteristics for ligament replacement. Each type of LARS ligament contains a specific number of lengths of fibers, depending on the intended use. The number of fibers is specific to the ligament that they are made for as they mimic the natural anatomical structure.

This structure is placed alongside the damaged ligament, and provides an ideal scaffold for the normal healing tissue to grow into, rather like ivy growing up a tree. The new tissue quickly covers the synthetic fibers of the artificial ligament, and replaces the damaged parts of the injured ligament.

LARS has up to forty three different shapes and sizes of ligaments and a total of fifteen distinctive operating techniques. Designed to mimic the normal anatomic ligament fibers, the intra-articluar longitudinal fibers resist fatigue and allow fibroblastic ingrowth. The extra-articular woven fibers provide strength and resistance to elongation.
 

Typically patients can walk out of hospital unaided after the operation, be running one month later, sprinting two months later and playing competitive sports after three months.

 

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