Biomechanical Properties of Knee Medial Collateral Ligament Compared to Palmaris Longus for Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction

• Published in: Annals of biomedical engineering Vol. 51; no. 8; pp. 1795 - 1801
• Main Authors: Huang, Dave, Foster, Lukas, Stone, Michael, Kulber, David, Metzger, Melodie F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-08-2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Athletes; Autografts; Biochemistry; Biological and Medical Physics; Biomechanical Phenomena; Biomechanics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedicine; Biophysics; Cadaver; Cadavers; Classical Mechanics; Cyclic loads; Elbow; Elbow (anatomy); Elbow - surgery; Elbow Joint; Grafting; Humans; Knee; Ligaments; Material properties; Mechanical properties; Medial Collateral Ligament, Knee; Modulus of elasticity; Muscle, Skeletal - surgery; Original; Original Article; Preconditioning; Strain; Stress relaxation; Stress relaxation tests; Stress-strain curves; Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction; Palmaris longus; Graft; UCL reconstruction; Knee medial collateral ligament
• ISSN: 0090-6964; 1573-9686
• DOI: 10.1007/s10439-023-03188-z

Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCLR) is frequently performed among injured overhead-throwing athletes. One of the most common graft choices when performing a UCLR is the ipsilateral palmaris longus tendon (PL). The purpose of this study was to investigate the material properties of aseptically processed cadaveric knee collateral ligaments (kMCL) as a potential graft source for UCLR and compare them to the gold standard PL autograft. Each PL and kMCL cadaveric sample was subjected to cyclic preconditioning, stress relaxation, and load-to-failure testing, and the mechanical properties were recorded. PL samples exhibited a greater average decrease in stress compared to the kMCL samples during the stress-relaxation test (
p
 < 0.0001). PL samples also demonstrated a greater average Young’s modulus in the linear region of the stress–strain curve compared to the kMCL samples (
p
 < 0.01). The average yield strain and maximum strain of kMCL samples were significantly greater than the PL,
p
 = 0.03 and 0.02, respectively. Both graft materials had comparable maximum toughness and demonstrated a similar ability to deform plastically without rupture. The clinical significance of our result is that prepared knee medial collateral ligament allografts may provide a viable graft material for use in the reconstruction of elbow ligaments.