CONTRALATERAL PATELLAR TENDON AUTOGRAFT IN ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT RECONSTRUCTION

OBJECTIVE: To conduct a systematic review of literature about the use of contralateral patellar tendon autograft in anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions and present the results. METHODS: The LILACS, MEDLINE, Cochrane, PubMed, Scielo and Google Scholar databases were searched without date restrictions for the keywords “anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction” combined with “contralateral” in the article title. After the studies were identified, two independent evaluators collected the qualitative characteristics of the studies and classified them according to clinical outcomes of these grafts as positive, neutral, or negative. RESULTS: A total of 755 articles were found initially, and after detailed evaluation of all references, followed by a screening process and assessment of quality, a total of 11 studies were determined to be eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. Of these, 72.72% were level II studies, the most common level of evidence among the results. Positive results for this type of graft were found in 63.63% of the studies. CONCLUSION: Based on the literature review, most of the included articles (63.63%) presented positive results for the use of contralateral patellar tendon grafts. Level of Evidence III; Systematic review.