Lower Limb Length and Body Weight are Surrogate Predictors of Peroneus Longus Autograft Diameter

Graft diameters are essential in any ACL surgery, with diameters less than 8mm associated with higher revision rates. Peroneus longus (PL) grafts have garnered much attention recently due to ease of harvest and more reliable graft diameters. The present study aimed to study various anthropometric parameters associated with PL-graft diameters.

We performed a prospective cohort study of 50 patients undergoing PL harvest for ACL surgery at a tertiary referral hospital. Age, gender, height, weight, length of the lower leg (lateral tibial plateau to the tip of the fibula), circumference at the head of the fibula and girth at the lateral malleolus were measured pre-operatively. The length of the graft doubled and tripled graft diameters were assessed intra-operatively. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to study the association between the pre-operative anthropometric variables and the intra-operative graft diameters and length of graft harvested.

The mean doubled and tripled PL-graft diameter in our study population was 7.7 ± 0.9 mm and 8.7 ± 0.8 mm, respectively. The mean length of the graft was 25.9 ± 3.5 cm. We found no significant correlation between graft diameters and age, gender or height of the patient. We found that the patient's weight significantly correlated (p < 0.001) with graft diameter. We also found that the length of the lower leg (p < 0.0001), circumference at the head of the fibula (p = 0.001) and girth at the lateral malleolus (p = 0.029) showed significant correlation with tripled PL-graft diameter.

We found that weight, length of the lower leg and girth at the head of the fibula showed a strong correlation with tripled PL-graft diameter.