The comparison of the long-term affects of transtibial and transportal surgical techniques on pain, proprioception, function and balance of the patients had anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with hamstring tendon graft

This study aims to compare the results of long-term postoperative pain, muscle strength, function, balance, and proprioception effects of the Transportal (TP) and Transtibial (TT) surgical techniques with different hamstring tendon graft placement angles during ACL reconstruction. A total of 40 patients were recruited between the ages of 18-45 years who were reconstructed by TP or TT surgical techniques due to the isolated ACL injury at least 6 months ago. TP surgical technique group mean age was (35.75±5.95) years, they were postoperative (38.85±19.23) months ago; this was (30.85±8.37) years, (34.00±15.17) months for the TT surgical technique group, respectively. Their knee joint flexor-extensor isometric muscle power (JTech Myometre), knee joint circumferential measurement (tape measure), instability (Manuel Laksity Tests) and proprioceptive sense (digital goniometer), pain (Visual Analogue Scale), dynamic balance (Prokin PK 200), static balance (Flamingo test), activity level (Tegner Activity Score), functional level (Lyshom and Cincinnati Functional Tests and vertical and horizontal jump performance tests) and posture (New York Posture Analysis Test) were assessed. "SPSS for IBM Version 22" was used for statistical analysis. According to our results, only the surgical side flexor-extensor muscle power was higher in the TT surgical technique group (p<0.05), Additionally, the TT group flexor muscle power was found to be positively related to static balance. However, we have not found any significant difference between the groups regarding to the other parameters. Therefore, we may conclude that we have not found any difference between the two surgical techniques except the knee joint isometric flexor –extansor muscle power on the favour of the TT group.