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Dr. Harner recalls the most common treatment options for posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) tears.
Dr. Harner:
There is both operative and non-operative treatment. So, if the patient has a PCL injured knee, undergoes therapy, the therapy would be basically range of motion and strengthening, and the muscle group that you really focus on with PCL tear is called the quadriceps. That’s the big muscle on the thigh in the front. We really focus on getting that strong, and majority of the patients that have isolated PCL injured knees do well with that.
Surgical treatment, on the other hand, is a whole another story, and surgical treatment involves ligament reconstruction, which we can do arthroscopically. And we usually use either donor tissue, and sometimes we’ll use patient’s own tissue to do the surgery. After the surgery, the treatment is fairly similar to the treatment of someone who has an isolated PCL injured knee where we focus on the quadriceps muscle.
About Dr. Harner, M.D.:
Dr. Christopher D. Harner, M.D., is a Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania Professor, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Medical Director, and works in the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.
Visit Dr. Harner at the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine