Nearly 40 years after milestone ACL reconstruction surgery, Puck skis like a kid

“I’ve skied 1.7 million vertical feet in the last five years,” says 36-year-old Philip ‘Puck’ Wheaton. It’s an awful lot of skiing, especially for a guy who was born without an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)—the critical ligament that holds the knee together. When Puck had started walking in 1979, he seemed to wobble a bit—like most toddlers do, says his mother Liz Wheaton. At his 18-month checkup, his pediatrician determined there was more to Puck’s unsteadiness than run-of-the-mill toddler wobbliness. He referred Puck to Lyle Micheli, MD, director of Boston Children’s Hospital Sports Medicine Division. “Dr. Micheli was right on the case and determined that Puck was missing his ACL,” says Liz. An innovation in ACL surgery Puck’s condition made for a very challenging surgical dilemma. Surgery to reconstruct torn ACLs was pioneered in the late 1960s, but it required drill holes through the knee. The operation couldn’t be safely performed on growing children because the drill holes could damage the growth plates of the knee and disrupt future leg growth. In fact, no surgeon had attempted ACL reconstruction surgery on a child younger than age two at the time. Micheli did what the world’s best surgeons do. He improvised and innovated. He decided to thread Puck’s iliotibial band (the ligament that runs down the outside of the leg from the hip to the shin) in and around his knee to devise a makeshift ACL. Even though the procedure had never been at...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: ACL Our patients’ stories Source Type: news