Football (soccer) player Luciano Sánchez fully dislocated his knee on August 1 in a tragic accident but did not break any bones. Why did the doctor need to put screws to mend his injury?

Question

You can see the X-ray images of his injury via this link [https://d1af7m13b2f34i.cloudfront.net/media/thumbnail-1691323598273-original.jpg](https://d1af7m13b2f34i.cloudfront.net/media/thumbnail-1691323598273-original.jpg) . Why couldn’t the doctor just relocate his bones and put him in a cast? Why are the screws so important?

In: 6

Answer 1

The knee has several major ligaments that hold it together, among those the ACL and PCL that cross right in the middle. If you tear one of those ligaments, you can replace it with another ligament (either harvested from you or a cadaver). Screws are then used to anchor the new ligament into the bone.

Given how much hardware he got, the knee and most of its ligaments must have been unfortunately destroyed.