Does deviation of femoral and tibial tunnel placement leads to poor short term functional outcomes in arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction?

Introduction: Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is requisite for knee stability. Reconstruction in ACL tear is gold standard mode of treatment. Anatomical placement of graft is determined by precise drilling of femoral and tibial tunnels. Aim: To study the precision of placement of bony tunnel in single bundle arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction and to correlate functional outcome. Materials and Methods: A hospital based longitudinal prospective study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital. We included 37 patients who underwent ACL reconstruction. Radiographic analysis of knee was done to assess the position of tunnels. The position of tunnels was compared with ideal placement of tunnels and functional outcomes were documented. Lysholm score at 3 and 6 months was used for comparison. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS Ver. 17.0. Results: At the end of 6 months, 56.75% cases had good to excellent functional outcome. There was inverse correlation of deviation in femoral tunnel and tibial tunnel with Lysholm score at three months. There was inverse correlation of deviation in femoral tunnel with Lysholm score at 6 months. Conclusion: Following an ACL reconstruction, tunnels placement is very important to gain a successful outcome. Placement of femoral tunnel is especially important in this regard.