TY - JOUR T1 - Computer-Assisted Surgery Is Not More Accurate or Precise Than Conventional Arthroscopic ACL ReconstructionA Prospective Randomized Clinical Trial AU - Meuffels, Duncan E. AU - Reijman, Max AU - Verhaar, Jan A.N. Y1 - 2012/09/05 N1 - 10.2106/JBJS.K.00878 JO - The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery SP - 1538 EP - 1545 VL - 94 IS - 17 N2 - Background:  Accurate and precise tunnel placement is critical to the success of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. A new development, computer-assisted surgery, aids in placement of the ACL bone tunnels during surgery. Our hypothesis was that computer-assisted ACL reconstruction would allow more accurate and precise tunnel placement compared with conventional surgery.Methods:  In a prospective, double-blind, randomized clinical study, 100 patients eligible for ACL reconstruction with a transtibial technique were stratified by surgeon and randomized to either conventional or computer-assisted surgery. Measurement of femoral and tibial tunnel placement with use of three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) was used as the primary outcome to compare conventional ACL surgery with computer-assisted surgery.Results:  The placement of the femoral tunnel did not differ between groups (mean, 39.7% of the proximal-distal distance on the intracondylar axis [Blumensaat line] in the conventional group compared with 39.0% in the computer-assisted surgery group; p = 0.70). The anterior-posterior positioning of the tibial tunnel on the tibial plateau also did not differ significantly (38.9% in the conventional group compared with 38.2% in the computer-assisted surgery group; p = 0.58). There was no significant difference in the precision of either the femoral or the tibial tunnel placement between the two groups.Conclusions:  There was no significant difference in either the accuracy or the precision of tunnel placement between conventional and computer-assisted ACL reconstruction.Level of Evidence:  Therapeutic Level I. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. SN - 0021-9355 M3 - doi: 10.2106/JBJS.K.00878 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.K.00878 ER -