electrophysiological assessment of injury to the infra-patellar branch(es) of the saphenous nerve during anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction using medial hamstring auto-grafts: vertical versus oblique harvest site incisions

conclusions ipbsn injury is a common complication following arthroscopically-assisted aclr and, ifn not significant, oblique direction of the incision is associated with decreasedn incidence of the injury. ipbsn injury has no effect on the function but because of then disturbance with patients' satisfaction, authors believe the oblique incision isn preferable to avoid the nerve injury during medial hamstring tendons harvesting. background it was suggested that the direction of incision for medial hamstring tendons harvestingn influences the incidence of injury to the infrapatellar branch of the saphenous nerven (ipbsn), a common complication following arthroscopically-assisted anterior cruciaten ligament reconstruction (aclr). results the incidence of ipbsn injury was higher in the vertical group (4 patients vs. 10n patients), but the difference was not statistically significant. the mean of lysholm andn vas scores were the same. also, the mean of lysholm score was the same in patients withn and without ipbsn injury. however, patients without ipbsn injury were more satisfiedn (8.9 ± 9 vs. 7.4 ± 1.1; p < 0.001). patients and methods there were 60 patients underwent arthroscopically-assisted aclr assigned to two equaln vertical or oblique incision groups, randomly. one year postoperatively, the patientsn were electrophysiologically examined to detect whether ipbsn is injured. the lysholmn score was completed. the patients' satisfaction with surgical outcomes determinedn utilizing visual analogue scale (vas). finally, two groups were compared and the effectn of ipbsn injury on function and satisfaction was investigated. objectives the main purpose of current study was to compare the incidence of ipbsn injury betweenn vertical and oblique incisions utilizing electrophysiological evaluation.