| Anterior and Posterior Cruciate Ligament Anatomy | ||||||||
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| These MRI images are from a collegiate American football player. The best way to understand these images is to imagine viewing the knee from the side and then taking a thin slice out of the middle of the knee (referred to as the sagittal plane). The posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) is easily viewed as a dark wavy line running from the femur to the tibia. | ||||||||
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| The next image shows a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). It is the wavy white structure, and should appear with the same signal intensity (i.e.,dark) as the PCL. Operative findings confirmed a complete tear of the ACL, which was then repaired. | ||||||||
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