Success and Failure after Stifle Stabilization Surgery

Balanced and concurrent consideration of success and failure after stifle surgery should be used to define and explain how 'successful' a procedure is. To accomplish this, investigators must: understand how to calculate and report the successes and failures; carefully choose the outcome measure(s) used to measure success and failure; and evaluate and report data in a clinically meaningful manner. For decades, veterinary surgeons have debated which surgical procedure provides the best outcome after treatment of cruciate ligament rupture (CR). Three additional potential contributors to residual lameness in a dog after CR stifle stabilization surgery are the development of complications, the progression of osteoarthritis (OA), and instability. Force platform gait analysis has been used extensively to compare forces before and after surgical treatment of CR in clinical patients. A pedometer or accelerometer can measure patient activity level at home over an extended period of time.