New Ankle Surgery Research

[Guest guest]

(this was in Monday's Los Angeles Times Section S pg.3.)

Keyhole surgery using heat generated by a radio-frequency probe to

correct ankle instability is as effective as traditional surgery, but

patients heal more quickly and are able to return to normal activities

sooner, according to Stanford University researchers.

Several thousand surgeries are performed each year to correct ankle

instability caused by one or more injuries that lengthen ligaments,

allowing the ankle to twist or roll out.

Dr. Lawrence M. Oloff and his colleagues studied 15 patients who

received the procedure. Working though a thin slit, Oloff's team heated

ankle ligament with radio-frequency energy emitted by a thin probe. The

heat shrinks ligaments so that they bind ankle joints more tightly. In

conventional surgery, the ligaments might be shortened with staples or

subjected to even more evasive procedures.

Oloff told a meeting of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons

in Miami last Tuesday that the patient's ankles performed as well as

those treated conventionally. But the people treated with the new

procedure returned to normal activities, including athletics, in an

average of three months, compared to the six months or longer recovery

associated with conventional surgery. Oloff observed no complications

from the surgery.