[Anterior cruciate ligament prosthesis. Analysis of a failure]

Prosthetic ligaments of the knee have been very popular in the eighties. It took a number of years to become aware of the fact they are unable to provide long term stability to the knee joint. This report reviews the development of these prostheses, and tries to analyze the reasons for their failure and to find out why it took such a long time to demonstrate this failure, in order to draw a lesson from the past.