[Graft remodeling following Hertel ACL reconstruction in MR imaging]

MRI and clinical assessment of 21 patients operated on with Hertel method due to knee instability has been presented. Position of the graft in reference to the Blumensaat line has been evaluated in MRI with the use of 3 point scale after mean follow-up of 9-months. Four points scale has been used to grade signal intensity as indicator of graft remodeling. Lysholm scale served for clinical assessment. Mean grade for graft position was 2.3 and for signal intensity 2.7. Better remodeling of the graft correlated positively with its better positioning, but clinical assessment correlated poorly with signal intensity and localization of the graft. Incorrect positioning of the graft hinders its remodeling--ligamentization of the tendon.