Shear Wave Speeds Track Axial Stress in Porcine Collateral Ligaments

Abstract

Ligament tension is an important factor that can affect the success of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures. However, surgeons currently lack objective approaches for assessing tension in a particular ligament intraoperatively. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of noninvasive shear wave tensiometry to characterize stress in medial and lateral collateral ligaments (MCLs and LCLs) ex vivo. Nine porcine MCL and LCL specimens were subjected to cyclic axial loading while wave speeds were measured using laser vibrometry. We found that squared shear wave speed increased linearly with stress in both the MCL (r2avg = 0.94) and LCL (r2avg = 0.98). Wave speeds were slightly lower in the MCL than the LCL when subjected to comparable axial stress (p < 0.001). Ligament-specific wave speeds may arise from differences in geometry and stress distributions between ligaments. These observations suggest it may be feasible to use noninvasive shear wave speed measures as a proxy of ligament loading during orthopedic procedures such as TKA.