Surgical treatment of avulsion fractures at the tibial insertion of the posterior cruciate ligament: functional result☆

OBJECTIVE To objectively and subjectively evaluate the functional result from before to after surgery among patients with a diagnosis of an isolated avulsion fracture of the posterior cruciate ligament who were treated surgically. METHOD Five patients were evaluated by means of reviewing the medical files, applying the Lysholm questionnaire, physical examination and radiological examination. For the statistical analysis, a significance level of 0.10 and 95% confidence interval were used. RESULTS According to the Lysholm criteria, all the patients were classified as poor (<64 points) before the operation and evolved to a mean of 96 points six months after the operation. We observed that 100% of the posterior drawer cases became negative, taking values less than 5 mm to be negative. CONCLUSION Surgical methods with stable fixation for treating avulsion fractures at the tibial insertion of the posterior cruciate ligament produce acceptable functional results from the surgical and radiological points of view, with a significance level of 0.042.