ACL reconstruction in a deployed environment in support of operation enduring freedom: a surgical technique

Abstract

Military orthopaedic surgeons in deployed environments along with orthopaedic surgeons working in more austere environments often find themselves without surgical equipment that they are normally accustomed to having in the operative suite. Today's U.S. Army Combat Support Hospital is appropriately focused on being prepared for modern battlefield trauma but lacks the resources for advanced sports medicine surgery to include arthroscopic equipment and implants. In this report, we describe an autograft anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction procedure using a combined mini-open extra-articular/intra-articular technique. This method could serve as a model for orthopaedic surgeons operating in more austere environments without modern sports medicine equipment and when working with the local national population who do not have access to modern health care facilities.