AndyL
11-06-2013, 10:40 PM
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-human-body-part-discovered
As impossible as it may seem, two surgeons at University Hospitals Leuven have discovered an entirely new part of the human body. It is a ligament in the knee and it appears to play a role in patients suffering from a tear in their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a common sports injury. Named the anterolateral ligment, it was discovered using macroscopic dissection techniques after the doctors began investigating possible causes for complications after rehabilitation for ACL. They came across a paper written in 1879 that hypothesized the existence of a previously unknown ligament in the knee. The author of the paper turned out to be correct; Dr Claes and Dr Bellemans managed to locate the ligament and claim it can be found in 97% of all patients. Further research found that the pivot shift, a common complication after ACL rehabilitation, is caused by a tear in the ALL ligament.
Ok... So 134 years after it was theorized... And millions of knee surgeries, replacements etc done... never mind all the med students disecting cadavers... And now they find a new ligament?
Shouldn't this show on an MRI - they assess damage to the ACL PCL and MCL via MRI? How does it take almost 14 decades to find a ligament?
And why do I think I should probably be checking with my doctors and ortho's about this in a few months?
(edit... fix my dyslexic math)
As impossible as it may seem, two surgeons at University Hospitals Leuven have discovered an entirely new part of the human body. It is a ligament in the knee and it appears to play a role in patients suffering from a tear in their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a common sports injury. Named the anterolateral ligment, it was discovered using macroscopic dissection techniques after the doctors began investigating possible causes for complications after rehabilitation for ACL. They came across a paper written in 1879 that hypothesized the existence of a previously unknown ligament in the knee. The author of the paper turned out to be correct; Dr Claes and Dr Bellemans managed to locate the ligament and claim it can be found in 97% of all patients. Further research found that the pivot shift, a common complication after ACL rehabilitation, is caused by a tear in the ALL ligament.
Ok... So 134 years after it was theorized... And millions of knee surgeries, replacements etc done... never mind all the med students disecting cadavers... And now they find a new ligament?
Shouldn't this show on an MRI - they assess damage to the ACL PCL and MCL via MRI? How does it take almost 14 decades to find a ligament?
And why do I think I should probably be checking with my doctors and ortho's about this in a few months?
(edit... fix my dyslexic math)