| Abstract: | A review. The practice of orthopaedic sports medicine, specifically the management of ligament and tendon injuries, will experience dramatic changes in the near future. Rapid technol. advancements, esp. in imaging, will greatly increase the speed and accuracy of diagnosing musculoskeletal injuries. On the contrary, effective treatment strategies will lag behind. This widening gap will offer huge opportunities for clinicians, basic scientists, and bioengineers to collaborate and work jointly on in depth basic science and bioengineering research. Together with appropriately designed clin. outcome studies, scientifically based treatment strategies can be designed in order to reduce the gap and to improve patient outcome. In this review, we will focus on the subject of orthopaedic biomechanics and its importance in the treatment of ligament and tendon injuries. We will detail the history of fundamental work done to characterize their biomech. properties and highlight some recent advances using functional tissue engineering strategies, including the use of bioscaffolds, to improve the healing of medial collateral ligament, patellar tendon, and anterior cruciate ligament. To conclude, we will turn toward the future and highlight a few exciting areas of research as well as emphasize collaborative strategies to solve complex biol. and biomech. problems in ligaments and tendons. [on SciFinder (R)] |
