Correlation bettween Individual Anthropometric Characteristics and Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tibial Fovea Measurements

Objective To evaluate possible connections between the weight and height of patients submitted to total knee arthroplasty (TKA), with the length, width and area of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) fovea, as verified during surgery. Methods A total of 33 proximal tibial joint surfaces, obtained from TKA tibial sections of 33 patients, were used in the present study. The ACL was resected with a delicate scalpel to expose the ACL tibial fovea. Then the periphery of this fovea was delimited with a marker pen by means of small dots. Each piece was photographed, and the ACL tibial fovea length, width, and area were measured with the ImageJ (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA) software. Statistical analysis studied the correlation between anthropometrics data of the patients and the measurements of the ACL tibial fovea. Results The ACL tibial fovea length, width, and area were, respectively, 11.7 ± 2.0 mm, 7.1 ± 1.4 mm and 151.3 ± 22.2 mm (2) . There was a statistically significant relationship between the height of the patients and the width of the ACL tibial fovea. The width of the ACL fovea could be predicted by the formula: width = 107.294–(133.179 × height) + (44.009 × squared height). Conclusion The height of the patients may predict the width of the ACL tibial fovea, and therefore, may allow surgeons to choose the more adequate graft for each patient in ACL reconstruction.