POULSBO — Craig Adams, DVM, of Poulsbo Animal Clinic, now performs canine cruciate ligament repair, providing an advanced surgical technique previously available only in Seattle.

Tearing of the cranial cruciate ligament (the equivalent of the anterior cruciate ligament in people) is a very common problem in dogs, Adams said. It causes acute pain and also long-term degeneration of the knee joint.

Surgery has been the treatment of choice for decades and a number of techniques have been used for the repair. Currently, the tibial plateau leveling osteotomy, or TPLO, is one of the more popular methods used, It involves a curved cut in the shin bone (tibia) and forward rotation with bone plating of the tibial plateau, which is the flat spot on the upper tibia where it articulates with the thigh bone (femur).

‘While the TPLO is effective, there are several drawbacks to the procedure – most importantly, degeneration of the cartilage of the surfaces in the knee,” Adams reports. “A newer technique, the CORA-based leveling osteotomy (CBLO), improves on the TPLO. It likewise rotates the tibial plateau forward, but does it at the CORA — center of rotational axis — by making an inverted cut in the bone. This maintains stability of the joint to minimize articular cartilage loss and allows for a quicker recovery, since the bones can be brought into closer apposition than can be obtained with the TPLO.”

The North Kitsap Herald earlier reported on Adams’s surgery on a goldfish to remove a tumor (https://www.kitsapdailynews.com/news/bubbles-a-true-story-for-children-of-all-ages/)