PhD Thesis. Current management of rotatory instability of the knee. Objetctive indications to perform an anterolateral extrarticular tenodesis.
A Father’s Gift. On Fanpage, the article dedicated to the first living donor acl reconstruction in Italy.
A Father’s Gift. The Tendon Transplant
“Lorenzo is 15 years old and has been playing football since he was 4. His first word was “goal”, but his dream was at risk of fading after an injury on the field that led to a tear in his anterior cruciate ligament. His father, Alessandro, saved this great passion by donating his knee tendon to Lorenzo to allow the reconstruction of the cruciate ligament and significantly reduce the risk of a new injury in the future. The operation, performed at the Pinerolo hospital in Turin by orthopedic surgeons Mario Formagnana and Simone Perelli, was the first in Italy to involve tendon transplantation from one living being to another.
The first father-to-son tendon transplant in Italy. The story of Alessandro and Lorenzo has moved and touched the country, both for the “love shown by a father and for the courage and professionalism of the doctors who completed the” operation. Fanpage.it went to Piacenza, where Lorenzo is undergoing rehabilitation.
Lorenzo is a 15-year-old teenager, with clear ideas about his passions from a very young age: “My first word – he tells Fanpage.it – was goal. I started playing soccer at 4 years old in a small team in Piacenza and I never stopped”.
The Injury and the Tendon Transplant
Until last year, when Lorenzo got injured on the field: “We were playing the semifinal of our championship and while controlling a ball, I put my knee down badly. I immediately knew something had gone wrong”.
Lorenzo looks at the coach on the bench. He is helped and subsequently taken to the emergency room, but further tests will be needed for a diagnosis: rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee.”
Read the full article on Fanpage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVJf3FLFqls
“At “Pinerolo Hospital, the” team of the complex Orthopedics structure performed for the first time a delicate combined intervention of meniscal transplant, tibial corrective osteotomy and revision of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with cadaveric allograft under arthroscopic assistance.
Last summer, they had performed a first elbow prosthesis intervention. In autumn 2021, instead, the first cadaveric meniscal transplant via arthroscopy. In all three cases, these were absolute “firsts” for Pinerolo, using rarely applied and highly complex surgical techniques. These techniques are performed only in very few reference centers.
First Combined Transplant of Ligaments and Meniscus
The latest case, the combined transplant of ligaments and meniscus, was performed by Dr. Mario Formagnana, orthopedic surgeon at “Agnelli Hospital, assisted by an” international team that availed itself of the collaboration of Dr. Simone Perelli and Dr. Gonzalo Rojas, with the support of “the team of the Pinerolo Orthopedics Department, particularly Dr. Marco Gulmini and Dr. Leonardo Coltella, along with the operating room staff and the” anesthesiology team led by Dr. Mauro Pastorelli.
The meniscus transplant is performed on young patients selected based on precise clinical parameters and who present initial knee wear due to a previous meniscus injury or removal. The intervention in Pinerolo was performed on a 37-year-old patient, previously operated on at another hospital for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction and medial meniscus removal, with subsequent failure of the intervention due to re-rupture of the new ligament and onset of knee cartilage wear. The new intervention performed at Agnelli Hospital, which was perfectly successful, allowed the patient to recover knee stability and function, and already now, mobility recovery. The transplant, made possible through the organ donation system and thanks to the generosity of the donor’s family, aims to prevent the knee from developing early arthritis. “
Father-to-son tendon transplant: Fanpage has also covered this innovative procedure, the first in Italy.
“For the first time in Italy, an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery of the knee was performed using a transplant from a living donor. The recipient was a 14-year-old boy from Pinerolo (Turin), while the donor was his father.
For the first time in Italy, a reconstruction surgery of an anterior cruciate ligament of the knee was performed using a transplant from a living donor. The recipient was a 14-year-old boy from Pinerolo (Turin), while the donor was his father. The surgical procedure was carried out in the Orthopedics department directed by Dr. Sergio Ronco.
With this technique, already used in Australia and Spain, the Orthopedics team is now developing a protocol for the procedure. This will then be shared with other specialized centers to be adopted at a national level. .
“We performed the surgery simultaneously in two operating rooms,” explains Formagnana. “In one, we harvested the tendons from the father, and in the other, we used them to reconstruct the cruciate ligament in the son.” Until now in Italy, either autologous tendons (one’s own) or tendons from deceased donors distributed by Tissue Banks have been used for reconstruction. The latter provide excellent results in adult patients, while in pediatric patients they have shown a high failure rate, which often discourages their use. “
Read here the full article on the father-to-son tendon transplant
Father-to-son tendon transplant: on Repubblica
“First time in Italy for the reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee with a transplant from a living donor, a father, to his 14-year-old son.
The “surgery took place at the” hospital in Pinerolo (Turin), in the Orthopedics department directed by Sergio Ronco. It was performed by Mario Formagnana, from the “hospital, and by Simone Perelli from” Icatme, Barcelona, under the coordination of Ronco, together with the operating room teams of Pinerolo, in collaboration with the Regional Transplant Center.
“We performed the ‘surgery simultaneously in two operating rooms – explains Formagnana -. In one, we harvested the tendons from the father, and in the’ other, we used them to reconstruct the cruciate ligament in the son”.
Until now in Italy, autologous tendons, meaning one’s own, or tendons from deceased donors distributed by Tissue Banks have been used for reconstruction. The latter provide excellent results in adult patients, while in pediatric patients they have shown a high failure rate. “In pediatric patients, however, tendons are often too small. For our 14-year-old patient, still in the growth phase, the ‘surgery had to be performed using a pediatric technique. However, the boy showed anthropometric characteristics that suggested an autograft of tendons would have been insufficient in size. For this reason, the’ surgery was performed using the father’s tendons”. “
At the following link is the Repubblica article about this innovative surgery, the first in Italy
Father-to-son Tendon Transplant: the First in Italy.
Team Led by Dr. Simone Perelli, Expert in Knee Surgery
A “very delicate operation, performed without any complications, was carried out in recent weeks at the” Agnelli hospital in Pinerolo (Turin). “The procedure, a father-to-son tendon transplant, the first of its kind in Italy, was performed by Piacenza surgeon Simone Perelli. Dr. Perelli has been working for seven years at the” Icatme in Barcelona, a prestigious Catalan institute for sports traumatology and medicine.
This time, it wasn’t the stars of Barcelona or the world tennis that Perelli is used to seeing under the knife, but a 13-year-old boy from Piacenza, recovering from a serious injury sustained in a football match.
“The exceptional nature of the” procedure lies not only in the complexity of the “operation, which required two operating rooms with respective medical teams working simultaneously, but in overcoming certain ethical barriers. In fact, Perelli and his colleague from the” Pinerolo hospital, Marco Formagnana, had to obtain authorizations from the Regional Transplant Center and draw up a lengthy protocol to allow the 45-year-old father of the boy to donate ligaments. The case is set to become a precedent in our country. Italy thus aligns itself with the United States, Spain, and Australia, where similar operations (with two living patients) are an established practice.
Here you can find the complete article
“This is how I treat the knees of sports champions”. The young surgeon from Piacenza, specialized in traumatology, works at the Institut Català de Medicina and follows the athletes of the Barcelona sports club. “It was an opportunity to seize immediately”.
