Cruciate Ligament Rupture
On of the more common causes of lameness we see in dogs is a ruptured cruciate ligament.
Many people would be familiar with cruciate ligament rupture after watching a bit of footy. It is quite a common injury in football players when they land awkwardly or have a bad knock to the legs.
In dogs, ruptured cruciate ligaments are often what we consider a degenerative condition. That is, rather than the ligament rupturing with significant trauma, there is a weakness in the ligament that leads to it rupturing with normal activity.
Because of the underlying weakness in the ligaments, if a dog ruptures the ligament in one knee, they have about a 70% chance of rupturing the ligament in the other knee.
The normal sign of a ruptured cruciate ligament is the dog becoming suddenly lame. This may be when chasing a ball, or even undertaking gentle activity such as walking around. We can confirm cruciate ligament rupture but checking for instability in the joint combined with xrays.
In people there is often no need for surgery as our legs are straight so the cruciate ligament doesn’t have much use in gentle, day to day life. Of course for athletes or very active people surgery is often indicated.
Because a dogs leg is bent the cruciate ligament is used in every step, so for most dogs surgery is required. This normally involves cleaning up the damage within the joint, then creating a prosthetic ligament to stabilise the joint. We use the Ligafibre Iso-toggle Technique. We prefer this technique as it gives consistently excellent results while still being affordable. We are lucky to have Dr Joc Bunny at the Bunbury Vet Clinic, who has her Memberships in Surgery, meaning she has undertaken extra training and examinations in surgery. With Dr Joc performing these procedures we find the dogs return to good function quite quickly.
Early surgical treatment of cruciate ruptures gives much better results as the damage to the knee joint is minimised, so any back leg lameness in a dog should be examined quickly to help minimise arthritis in the future.