Pretensioning of Soft Tissue Grafts in Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction

To determine which preconditioning and pretensioning techniques should be applied to soft tissue grafts during anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction to avoid loss of tension after surgery, fresh semitendinosus and tibialis anterior tendons underwent tensile mechanical testing with 4 pretensioning and/or preconditioning techniques. A mechanical tester was used to collect the data. Group I (n=5) was given only an initial 80 N pull for tensioning, Group II (n=4) was given pretensioning and initial tensioning, Group III (n=5) was given cyclic tensioning and initial tensioning, and Group IV (n=5) was given a combination of the 3 techniques. Group I lost 50% of the initial tension at 30 minutes. The residual tension in Groups II, III, and IV was significantly higher than that in Group I after 1, 10, and 30 minutes (P<.001). Group IV consistently showed significantly higher residual tension than Groups II and III after 10 and 30 minutes (P<.05). All groups experienced elongation during testing: Group I (10.8 mm)