Synovium and Blood Capillaries at the Femoral Attachment of Anterior Cruciate Ligament are Significantly Abundant than those at the Tibial Attachment

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a that mainly controls the and rotational mobility of knee joint, its surface covered by synovial membrane with large number blood vessels. In general, nutritional supply to from many capillaries in adjacent synovium. However, statistical studies distributed ACL are insufficient. this study, we examined cross-sectional histological images femoral attachment (femoral level), middle level tendon (middle tibial (tibial level) statistically analyzed capillary distribution among three levels. ACLs 10 cadavers were divided into 5 equal sections, 4mm-thick paraffin sections made at level, then hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining performed. area each transverse section was measured using Image-J 1.51n (U. S. National Institutes Health, Bethesda, MD, USA). Fiber bundles relatively small sparse became larger denser toward level. Many synovium fiber bundle also penetrated deeply between bundles. particular, densely rather than another two Indeed, most abundant significantly small, however, abundant. Therefore, when injured, reconstruction preservation ligamentous remnant may be clinically useful for remodeling grafted tendon.