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| Functional anatomy of the anterior cruciate ligament in vivo with MRI |
| CHEN Xin, PAN Jing-jing |
| Department of Medical Imaging, General Hospital of Missile Army of PLA, Beijing 100088, China |
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Abstract Objective: To research the functional anatomic change of anterior cruciate ligament(ACL) in vivo. Methods: A total 40 knees from 30 healthy subjects, with mean age of 23 years, were studied to measure the length of the anteromedial bundle(AMB) and the posterolateral bundle(PLB) and to observe the change of the tension and the elevation angles and the architecture of AMB and PLB on oblique coronal and sagittal images at different flexion of the knees(0°, 30°, 60°, 90°) with MRI 3-dimensional multi echo data imaging combination(3D-MEDIC) sequence. Results: When the knee is extended, PLB is tight and longer and AMB is moderately lax and shorter. As the knee is flexed to 60°~90°, AMB is to tighten and longer and PLB is loosen up and shorter, meanwhile ACL displayed two types of architecture: parallel type(22 cases) and twist type(18 cases). The elevation angles are 38.5°±4.9° in AMB and 48.3°±6.9° in PLB as the knee is flexed to 0°. Conclusion: It is feasible to make 3D-MEDIC of MRI to study the functional anatomy of ACL in vivo.
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Received: 04 June 2009
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2010, Vol. 21 
