Is there significant variation in the material properties of four different allografts implanted for ACL reconstruction

The aims of our study were to: (1) determine if there are differences in the material properties of tendon obtained from implanted tibialis anterior, achilles, bone-patella- bone and tibialis posterior allografts; (2) determine the variability in material properties between the implanted specimens. A total of 60 specimens were collected from fresh frozen allografts implanted at ACL reconstruction. Specimens collected included 15 tibialis anterior, 15 tibialis posterior, 15 achilles and 15 bone-patella-bone tendons. Each specimen was mounted in a custom made cryogrip. The mounted specimens were loaded onto a MTS Testline servo-hydraulic testing machine in a uni-axial tensile test configuration. Specimens were subjected to a strain rate of 5% per second until the ultimate tensile stress (UTS), failure strain and high strain modulus was calculated for each specimen after being normalized for specimen dimensions. Individual material properties were tested using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc Tukey’s B test with a P value of <0.05 considered significant. Homogeneity of variance was assessed using the Levene’s test. As a result, no significant difference was found between all four grafts with regards to UTS, failure strain or high strain linear modulus. The UTS was plotted against the modulus demonstrating a linear relationship which is typical of soft tissues. Significant variability in the results were observed. In conclusion, there was no significant statistical difference between the material properties of the four tendon allografts tested. But significant variability in results was observed within groups and between groups, which may provide one explanation for the range of results in allograft ACL reconstruction reported in the literature.