Importance

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Abstract

An endosteal ligament retainer for use in an arthroscopic surgical procedure to replace an anterior or posterior cruciate ligament, the retainer for endosteally mounting a ligament end, with or without a stent, tendon, or the like into the endosteum end of a femoral or tibial tunnel section. The embodiments of the retainer, include a disk shaped base, that can be axially pivotally mounted to a screw head end and may be holed or include upstanding arcuate walls projecting from the disk edge that are for securing a ligament end thereto, as by sewing with a suture. Alternatively, a center holed disk and screw fitted axially therethrough make up the retainer, which disk includes spaced apart radial holes for receiving a suture or sutures sewn therethrough and to a ligament end, mounting the disk across that ligament end. Additionally, the retainer can be a disk fixed across a rear end of a nail or peg to attached a ligament graft end thereto, the nail or peg leading or forward end to include spaced individual flexing rings that will collapse opposite to the direction or travel into a close fitting tunnel end to then flex outwardly, locking in the endosteum when a tensile force is applied thereto. A driver is provided for fitting longitudinally through or alongside a ligament graft, which driver connects to either turn the screw or urge the nail or peg into the tunnel endosteum end. The driver, ligament and endosteal ligament retainer are for fitting by a surgeon into and along the aligned femoral and tibial tunnels into a prepared bone endosteum tunnel end for endosteally mounting the ligament graft end thereto.

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First Claim