A Closer Look at a Key Option for Tendon and Ligament Reconstruction and Repair

Sponsored by Artelon.

Ryan Scott, DPM:

My name is Ryan Scott. I am a fellowship trained foot and ankle surgeon at The CORE Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.

The majority of my indications for the use of the FlexBand product is in ligament reconstruction and tendon repairs. I think one of the biggest features that makes the FlexBand Solo product unique, at least to me, is the availability for it to incorporate into the surrounding soft tissues over time, as well as its elasticity properties that mirror or mimic more of a native ligament versus some of the competitive products on the market.

The biggest impact I've seen in my use with patients is their availability to get up and moving that much faster. I have a fairly significant sports population and or active population, and I see a fair amount of ankle instability and ankle sprains, and this product's really allowed me to get these patients back up and moving and doing their activities of daily living and their sporting events much faster than my prior implant. So the biggest one I use it for is ankle instability, so when I'm doing a lateral ankle reconstruction, whether that be an isolated ATFL or an ATFL/CFL combo. And the other thing I've really found big usage for is in tendon repair, so debridement, tubularization of the peroneal tendons, tibialis anterior tendon ruptures, and then going further on the medial side, deltoid ligament repair and spring ligament repair.

I have a fair amount of high school and college athletes that have had debilitating injuries and basically wiped them out for seasons. The most recent one I can think of is a soccer player. He's a center midfielder for one of the local universities here in town and had a horrific ankle sprain after a slide tackle injury. And he had tried and failed multiple attempts of conservative care and we ultimately ended up moving forward with a arthroscopic clean out of his ankle and then an open repair of his lateral ankle. We were able to get him back up training and working with his team after about six weeks, and he was ultimately game ready at about 10 weeks out without a sports brace.

Dr. Scott discloses that he is a consultant and designer for Artelon.