[Minimal invasive anterolateral ankle stabilization with a modified Hemi-Castaing technique]

The lesions to the lateral ligaments of the ankle are a common sports related injury. There are multiple surgical technics to address the problem all with a common goal: achieve a proper stability of the ankle. The improvements in the minimal invasive technics as well as those in the materials to fixate bone-tissue have also impacted the technics for lateral stabilization of the ankle.

We included all the patients with a diagnosis of lateral ankle instability which underwent surgery with a modify Hemi-Casting procedure with minimal invasive approach during the period between May 2004 and December 2007. We have an average follow-up of 30.3 months.

Our patients presented a good outcome with an improvement in the Karlsson’s scale of 48.7 points (± 15.6) in the preoperative to 93.6 points (± 9.6) during follow-up. They returned to their sports activities after an average of 5.72 months (± 4.93). We used dynamic X-ray’s taken with the Telos system and achieved 81.9% of our patients presented an excellent and good personal satisfaction.

The modifications to the Hemi-Castaing procedure to perform it with a minimal invasive technic are reproducible and provide us with another tool for the treatment of this pathology specially in the cases where there is no sufficient tissue to perform an anatomical repair.