Novel Suture Anchor Technique with Continuous Locking Stitch for Collateral Ligament Repair

Collateral ligaments are difficult to repair due to large amount of fraying in detached ligaments and attenuated stumps that may not provide enough strength after the repair. Although strong locking sutures are used to repair the ligament with proper tension, these damages can cause pull-out failure or relaxation of the repaired ligaments even from undersized load that may extend postoperative splinting or casting time. Furthermore, current suture techniques can repair varus or valgus instability of the elbow and radial or ulnar instability of the fingers, but these techniques do not offer rotatory stability of these areas. We have developed a novel suture anchor technique that has overcome this problem of current suture techniques, and this can be used to correct rotatory instability in the elbow and fingers. We used this procedure in seven cases with injury of collateral ligament in the elbow and eight cases with detached collateral ligaments of finger joint. No patient experienced rerupture or any kind of residual instability. We believe that the proposed method can produce much stronger repair and may shorten the postoperative immobilization period.