Support assembly for a replacement ligament and associated method

Abstract

A support assembly for a replacement ligament is disclosed, for positioning the ligament in a bone tunnel formed in a joint between two adjacent bones and reinforcing the joint. The support assembly has a particular use in the reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). One disclosed support assembly (24) comprises a fixation device (28) for a replacement ligament (26), the fixation device adapted to overlie a mouth (36) of a bone tunnel (16) and having a bone facing surface (34) which can abut an external surface (38) of a bone (12) to thereby position the ligament in the bone tunnel and support tensile loading on the ligament; a support element (30) for the replacement ligament, the support element being coupled to the fixation device and adapted to receive the ligament so that the ligament can be secured to the fixation device and thus positioned within the bone tunnel when the fixation device is located so that it overlies the tunnel mouth; and an extra-articular reinforcement element (32), the extra-articular reinforcement element being coupled to the fixation device and adapted to extend from the fixation device to an anchor point (54, 56) which is remote from the mouth of the bone tunnel, to provide extra-articular reinforcement for the joint.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.