Is There Any Correlation Between Patient Height and Patellar Tendon Length?

BACKGROUND A potential specific problem of patellar tendon graft in ACL reconstruction is the possibility of graft-tunnel mismatch which could be more problematic with anatomic ACL reconstruction where the femoral tunnel is placed low on the lateral wall of the lateral femoral condyle. The occasional occurrence of this mismatch raises the question that whether a correlation exists between patient height and patellar tendon length. The purpose of the present study was to measure patellar tendon length as an anthropometric finding and to evaluate whether a correlation exists between patient height and patellar tendon length. METHODS Intra-operative measurement of patellar tendon length was carried out in 267 consecutive patients during bone-patellar tendon-bone (BTB) graft ACL reconstruction. Patient age, gender, height were recorded. The patellar tendon measurements were done independently by two surgeons and the possible inter-observer errors were checked. The data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation. RESULTS The mean length of the patellar tendon was 46.4 ± 4.8 mm (Mean ± SD) with a range of 32-61 mm. The mean patient height was 177 ± 7 cm (Mean ± SD) with a range of 159-197 cm. A weak positive correlations were found between patient height and patellar tendon length (Pearson r = 0.24, P< 0.001). The linear regression equation for patellar tendon length (y, in millimeters) as a function of patient height (x, in centimeters) can be expressed as y=16.54 + 0.17x. CONCLUSIONS Our study showed a weak correlation between patellar tendon length and patient height. This finding is in contrast to the usual measurements in human anthropometry in which taller individuals have normally longer tendons and ligaments. The graft-tunnel mismatch may be the result of this variation.