LARS artificial ligaments

[Agent 00X]

FYI:

http://www.larsligament.com/

So, the recent Transworld Skateboarding issue mentions that Danny Way recently had a second artificial ACL reconstruction in Austria. The first was put in, I guess about 10 years ago. Recently this first LARS was found damaged, the nature of the failure is not described. The LARS is made with polyester and looks to be load bearing and not a just a scaffolding for ligament regrowth, such as the unsucessful Gore-Tex artificial ligament was (I think, could be wrong). Interesting stuff.

[truth]

The LARS artificial ligament is made of industrial strength polyester fibers (Terephthalic Polyethylene). More specifically, the lap from which the LARS ligament is made is composed of a woof of longitudinal technical fibers and a transversal warp consisting of a thread of textured polyester. The original design of the knit prevents stretching, contrary to the woven structure of the first ligaments. The longitudinal fibers united by the non deforming thread, are perfectly straight and parallel and thus do not require any other manipulation once in place.



LARS ligaments undergo no residual stretching other than the minute amount due to the technical fibers themselves elongating when subjected to physiological tension ( < to 1%).


Seems the old LARS ligaments were woven and thus stretched, prolly why he had to have it replaced.

[norcalgirl]

My son had a total knee blow-out that was repaired using LARS ligaments. That was 2yrs ago---plays D-1 football. He is in the company of many high caliber athletes who make this choice for the quick recovery time. I have a website about his injury/recovery and LARS. I will soon be posting an acl diary of an American having his acl replaced with LARS. Keep Moving USA was formed to give Americans the opportunity to use LARS as a treatment option easily(not like we had to!) LARS is not for everyone but worth the research.

[Dexter Rutecki]

What I've read of these things makes me very skeptical of them, but I'm sure there are others who know more about them here. Of course I'm in the midst of researching all sorts of recon. options right now, unfortunately...

[drmark]

This stuff makes allografts look good.

Why an person would want to become someone's science project is beyond me.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Yeah, well, this norcalgirl is all the hell over the internet pumping up this LARS thing--I haven't done it quite yet, but I'm pretty sure that with 5-10 minutes more on Google I could establish some sort of financial connection between her and the LARS people. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anyone shill this hard for a product in quite awhile.

I'd really like it if something like this were viable, though, as I'm going to have to choose between allo and hamstring soon, given my used up patella tendons. Don't think they'll have it perfected by the spring, though.

[drmark]

She is in alot of places. The thing is goofy, only nominally more goofy than allografts for people with available autogenous tissues.

[Tourette Dude]

Why an person would want to become someone's science project is beyond me.

This goes for the pharmaceutical industry too. The wonders of marketing.

[drmark]

It goes for most of the medical industries.

[Knee-will-be-great]

Hi Knee people,

RE: Norcalgirl and LARS ... here is a link to her LARS shilling on the Kneegeek's Bulletin Board:

http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/KNEEtalk/index.php?action=profile;u=20042;sa=showPosts

I as well as some others called her on some of her comments as follows:

http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/KNEEtalk/index.php?action=profile;u=11682;sa=showPosts

Other people on BOB's ACL Knee Board called her on her statements about LARS:

http://www.factotem.org/cgi-bin/kneebbs.pl/noframes/read/323403

http://www.factotem.org/cgi-bin/kneebbs.pl/noframes/read/323404

http://www.factotem.org/cgi-bin/kneebbs.pl/noframes/read/323077

Cheers from Knee-will-be-great

[Knee-will-be-great]

Dear Knee Folks,

Here is a quote Norcalgirl made on the Kneegeeks website on November 28, 2007.

"I HAVE NOT MADE A PENNY FROM LARS! It is so amazing to me that even if this was a profitable venture how that fact would somehow lesson the successful technology that LARS has created. Few question the drug companies that sell drugs for a huge profit..... LARS is approved all over the world. They produced their first ligament in 1992 and have continually improved it when research halted in the US after the Gortex mess. LARS hasn't pursued the US market because of the time, cost and paperwork involved. I don't know of a better way to spread the word about LARS than through personal experience and a website. I would love to hear your ideas. The long-term studies are out there. Check European Surgical Research to start. LARS switched from a weave to a knit a few years back(2003 I think, so watch the date of the studies you find). One interesting thing that I have learned is that there is a growing number of US orthos having LARS used to heal their own knees but can't recommend it to patients---something to think about.......... "

Note her last sentence ... "One interesting thing that I have learned is that there is a growing number of US orthos having LARS used to heal their own knees but can't recommend it to patients---something to think about.......... "

Comments anyone? :mad: Something smells rotten to me.

Knee-will-be-great

[Knee-will-be-great]

Here is something from the LARS website ...


http://www.larsligament.com/downloads/Testimonials/Article2.pdf

The testimonial is really not a strong not valid one.

Here is Becky Thomas' comments about "how easy" the LARS "installation" is.

http://www.factotem.org/cgi-bin/kneebbs.pl/noframes/read/323056

Here's more hilarity for the lars website:

http://www.keepmovingusa.com/articles/Knee-Surgeries.html

Read this from this link:

"I get asked about my synthetic ACL all the time. The synthetic is an alternative to the patella tendon graft (where they take healthy cartiledge from the other good knee) or a cadaver patella tendon graft (the new tendon coming from a dead body).
For me as an athlete that is trying to cure a problem, it didn't make sense for me to take cartiledge from my good knee and then have two problems knees. In sports, most professional athletes seem to go with either the cadaver graft or the synthetic. I have tried the cadaver tendon graft but that didn't last for me."

_______________________________

As one of my Kneegeek buddies said ... "Did you know that they take cartilage to reconstruct an ACL?

You'd think that someone at LARS would at least be conscientious enough to make a statement correcting the inaccurate info in his testimonal. They do say that he is not a medical person, but the testimonial feeds a misconception about the nature of B-P-B grafts. Weird."