Healing ruptured tendons and ligaments will undergo a significant period of weakness. With the return of activity, these weakened tissues often become stretched or fail entirely. Therefore, it is common for surgeons to reinforce the reconstruction with one of three types of material:
Autograft: Tissue taken from another part of your own body
Allograft, Xenograft: Tissue acquired from deceased donors or other animal species
Synthetic: Scientifically engineered materials that substitute for the body’s own tissues
Our daily activities require STRONG and ELASTIC tendons and ligaments that most reinforcements cannot provide. After reconstruction, reinforcement graft materials are rapidly broken down, and lose 50-90% of their strength within the first six weeks.(1,2) These are also much stiffer than native tendons and ligaments which leads to altered motion at the healing site. These compromises in natural motion of a joint can have profound negative effects on long-term motion, joint surfaces, and tissue healing.
Connective tissue (black arrows) intimately integrated within the Artelon matrix (red arrows)
50% pore distribution is 21-100µm and suitable for fibroblasts 20% pore distribution is 100-400µm and suitable for osteoblasts
Degradation of Artelon matrix (black arrows) and intimate integration of connective tissue (blue)
Late stage degradation of Artelon matrix (black arrows)
Stained for Type-1 collagen (brown) within the Artelon matrix
Mechanical Resilience @ 6 weeks