Advanced multi ligament meeting Hamburg 2017
We did this multiligament course in Germany last week (July 2017). It was a very exciting one-day course organised by Karl-Heinz Frosch and Arthrex.
In terms of the faculty, there was myself, Bertrand Sonnery-Cottet, and Karl-Heinz together with his team from Hamburg.
Karl-Heinz Frosch
Karl-Heinz is the Professor of knee surgery and sports medicine at the university trauma hospital in Hamburg. He is really a leading figure currently in Europe on knee preservation and soft tissue knee surgery. He has developed some very interesting new techniques using internal brace technology to get multiligament-knee-injured patients up and mobilising immediately.
He has the largest published series in the world with more than 80 cases beyond two years and he talked about his experiences. This is very interesting new technology and very similar to the 'internal brace' repair that Gordon Mackay developed and I helped co-develop. Karl-Heinz has also been using this technique with great success.
They get a regular influx of knee dislocations every week from all over the local area since it is a Level I trauma centre, and rather than prolonged rehabilitation in a plaster or a splint with conservative treatment, or even operative reconstruction of the ligaments, Karl-Heinz has been going for early repair and intervention and then rapid mobilisation that allows the patient to weight-bear immediately in a brace and in fact even squat.
Programme
We talked about the medial side of the knee, the lateral side of the knee, and managing the multiligament-injured knee. Bertrand did a fantastic summary of where we are with the antero-lateral ligament (ALL), presented his results and then did a live demonstration. I presented new concepts in internal brace reconstruction and repair and presented our results and our experience particularly with the PCL.
I then did a live demonstration from the lab on a cadaveric specimen showing how to do a PCL reconstruction using the internal brace as a backup (having prepared my specimen the day before). It was a great day and I learned a lot.
The following day we sat down and did a really interesting workshop with the Arthrex team on some new innovative ways of repairing the meniscus and improving the ACL TightRope button and it was a great privilege to be part of this. Overall it was a fantastic meeting.
