{"63961":{"#nid":"63961","#data":{"type":"news","title":"3-D Technology Puts Young Athletes with ACL Tears Back in Game","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENew\ntechnology has made it possible for surgeons to reconstruct Anterior Cruciate\nLigament (ACL) tears in young athletes without disturbing the growth plate.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EWorking\nwith Dr. John Xerogeanes, chief of the Emory Sports Medicine Center, Allen\nTannenbaum, the Julian Hightower professor of bioengineering at the Georgia\nInstitute of Technology, has developed 3-D MRI technology that allows surgeons to\npre-operatively plan and perform anatomic ACL surgery.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ETannenbaum\nand student researchers in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical\nEngineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University created the 3-D MRI technology\nthat allows the surgeon to see from one point of the knee to another during\nligament replacement\u003Cstrong\u003E. \u003C\/strong\u003EAll of the\nmedical imaging processing and algorithmic work was done through Tannenbaum\u2019s\nMinerva Research Group at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe\ndevelopment of this interactive computer software allows much safer repair of\nthe ACL in young athletes with a much smaller chance of complications,\u201d\nTannenbaum said. \u201cIt is an excellent example of how 3-D MRI data, in\nconjunction with state-of-the-art image processing, can help the practicing\nsports surgeon in a key image-guided surgery and surgical planning task.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ACL\nis one of the four major ligaments in the knee, and ACL tears are one of the\nmost common injuries in children who participate in contact sports such as\nfootball, basketball, soccer and gymnastics.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ETraditional\ntreatment for ACL injuries in kids has been rehabilitation, wearing a brace and\nstaying out of athletics until the child stops growing - usually in the\nmid-teens - and ACL reconstruction surgery can safely be performed.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe\nproblem with doing surgery on a young child is that if you damage the growth\nplate, you can cause a growth disturbance,\u201d said Xerogeanes, an associate professor\nin the Department of Orthopaedics at Emory University School of Medicine.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ACL\nis like a rubber band that attaches at two points to stabilize the knee. In\norder to replace the ligament, surgeons create a tunnel in the upper and lower\nknee bones, slide the new ACL between those two tunnels and attach it to both\nends. The new ligament is typically taken from either a hamstring tendon or\nallograft tissue, which is donor material.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EPrior to\nusing the 3-D MRI technology, ACL operations were conducted with extensive use of\nX-rays in the operating room and left too much to chance when working around\ngrowth plates, researchers said.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EWith this\nnew technology, surgeons can actually see from one point to the other on either\nside of the knee and can correctly position the tunnels where they will place\nthe new ligament. The surgery can be done in less time than the traditional\nsurgery and with complete confidence that the growth plates in young patients\nwill not be damaged.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EKids who\nundergo this type of operation will still have at least one year of recovery\ntime, Xerogeanes said. The good news is that it does allow them to eventually\npursue normal activity.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EXerogeanes\nand his colleagues at Emory are performing the anatomic ACL reconstruction\ntechnique on adult patients as well as pediatric patients. He hopes that another\nadvantage of this new anatomical procedure will be that it helps prevent\nre-injury in the future for all athletes who have suffered from ACL tears.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ETannenbaum also has an appointment in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENew technology helps surgeons reconstruct ACL tears in young athletes without disturbing growth plate.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New technology helps surgeons reconstruct ACL tears in young athletes without disturbing growth plate."}],"uid":"27462","created_gmt":"2011-01-28 17:43:35","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:08:06","author":"Liz Klipp","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-01-28T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2011-01-28T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"63962":{"id":"63962","type":"image","title":"Dr. Allen Tannenbaum","body":null,"created":"1449176708","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:05:08","changed":"1475894561","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:41","alt":"Dr. Allen Tannenbaum","file":{"fid":"191905","name":"0651202-P6-17.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/0651202-P6-17_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/0651202-P6-17_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2043019,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/0651202-P6-17_0.jpg?itok=2HcbNFlo"}}},"media_ids":["63962"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/shared.web.emory.edu\/emory\/news\/releases\/2011\/01\/young-athletes-and-acl-tears.html","title":"http:\/\/shared.web.emory.edu\/emory\/news\/releases\/2011\/01\/young-athletes-and-..."}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"594","name":"college of engineering"},{"id":"11782","name":"Emory; Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering;  ACL; Allen Tannenbaum"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["liz.klipp@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}