ABSTRACT
The cranial cruciate ligament was surgically removed from the right stifle joint in ten heavy steers and two bulls, and replaced with a tendon-ligament graft harvested from the tendon of the gluteobiceps muscle including a portion of the lateral patellar ligament. Two surgical techniques (placing the graft through a femoral bone tunnel and placing the graft through the joint space) were compared using six animals in each group.Both surgical techniques were easily performed and caused minimal postoperative inflammation. The clinical response observed over four to five months was considered satisfactory in 9 of 12 animals. However, the tensile strength of the graft determined at necropsy was less than the cranial cruciate ligament in the opposite normal stifle in all animals tested.
ABSTRACT
The ultimate tensile load of the cranial cruciate ligament of normal adult cattle was measured. The ultimate tensile load was related to the animal's live body weight and to the cross-sectional surface area of the cranial cruciate, ligament. Four groups of joints were used which were based on angle of the joint and time after slaughter that the test was made. Repeatability was determined by using paired joints from the same animals. The results indicated a high degree of correlation between the tensile load of the cranial cruciate ligament and the animal's live body weight and the cross-sectional area of the ligament. There were no significant differences between the 4 groups tested and the repeatability was high for the tensile load, the tensile load per unit body weight, and the tensile load per unit cross-sectional area.
