Surgical treatment of the adductor longus muscle's distal tendon total rupture in a soccer player.

Only a few cases of adductor longus tendon ruptures have been reported in the literature and - there are no clear criteria for conservative or surgical treatment. A case of traumatic rupture of the right distal adductor longus tendon is presented in an elite soccer player, which was surgically repaired. The condition was managed conservatively primarily. However, after 2 months, a palpable mass remained on the medial side of the thigh, and the patient had pain after moderate everyday load and insufficient strength of the right leg during physical exercise. It was decided to explore ruptured tendon surgically and reattach to the femur. Full function of the right leg was achieved at 3 months after surgical repair. At 6 months postoperatively, the patient had returned to soccer at the same level.

Comparative anatomical study of standard percutaneous and modified medialised percutaneous Bunnell type repair for artificial Achilles tendon rupture: positive effect of medialisation of the stitches with lower risk of sural nerve injury.

BACKGROUND: Less invasive percutaneous acute Achilles tendon rupture (AATR) repair techniques gain popularity because of lower risk of surgical wound complications. But these approaches have an increased risk of sural nerve iatrogenic injury as this sensory nerve is usually not visualised during minimally invasive operative procedures. We compared standard percutaneous Bunnell type and our proposed modified-medialised percutaneous technique in a cadaver study to evaluate potential advantages. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten pairs of fresh frozen specimens were divided into two groups for comparative anatomical study. Tenotomies of Achilles tendons were made and wounds sutured. Ten standard and 10 modified-medialised repairs were applied for artificially performed ruptures. All sutured tendons were dissected meticulously. We carefully looked at repaired Achilles tendon end-to-end contact and adaptation, distance from Achilles insertion in calcaneal tubercle to place where sural nerve crosses lateral border of the Achilles tendon and possible sural nerve and vein entrapment. Groups were compared using Fisher's exact and Student-T tests. RESULTS: All ends of sharply dissected tendons in both groups were in sufficient contact. No measurable diastasis between tendon ends was found in all cases. No entrapment of sural nerve or vein was found in modified percutaneous Bunnell suture technique group, whereas 7 of 10 sural nerves and 9 small saphenous veins were entrapped when using standard percutaneous Bunnell type technique. Average distance from Achilles tendon insertion in tuber calcanei to sural nerve crossing the lateral border of Achilles was 93 mm. CONCLUSIONS: Medialisation of percutaneous suture in AATR repair shows clear advantages compared to standard non medialised technique ensuring a possible lower incidence of sural nerve entrapment injury. Our modified percutaneous Bunnell type technique allows sufficient adaptation of ruptured Achilles tendon.