The Knee Learning Resource
This is a type of graft which may be used for replacement of a torn cruciate ligament in the knee, where a part of the patellar tendon is used as the graft material.
When the anterior cruciate ligament is ruptured it may be reconstructed using material from the patient himself (an autograft). The most well-known autograft is that of the patellar tendon, the big strong tendon below the kneecap.
The central one third of this tendon can be 'harvested', together with a bone block at each end - the upper block from the patella (kneecap) itself and the lower block from the tibia bone (shin). This harvested tendon is thus 'bone-patellar tendon-bone' in structure.
The bone blocks at each end allow the tendon to be securely anchored once the autograft is threaded through to replace the torn cruciate.
After some years of declaring the B-PT-B the 'gold standard', it became evident that patients often suffered from pain from the donor area, and surgeons started to use hamstrings tendons instead.
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