Computer-assisted knee anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: first clinical tests.

Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction is a delicate task. The procedure of choice is the patellar tendon bone autograft, but an anisometric position of this tendon often leads to failure. We allows positioning of the central part of the ligament graft at the least anisometric sites. The system uses a workstation and a three-dimensional optical localizer to create images that represent knee kinematics. The surgeon uses these images to guide the surgery. This technique has been validated on eight cadavers and 12 patients.