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Dr. Christopher Harner
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VIDEO: Dr. Harner - Medial Collateral Ligament Tear, Who Needs Surgery?

Dr. Harner describes which patients need surgery to treat their medial collateral ligament (MCL) tear.

Dr. Harner:
Virtually all MCLs, probably 90% of them, heal on their own with bracing and physical therapy. There is a small group, 5 to 10% of these injuries, that result in instability, and what happens there is that the ligament doesn’t heal correctly and there’s still, we call it laxity, the lay term is looseness in the ligament. And they’ll feel their knee give in, and that’s the symptom they will feel, and that’s the one, those are the few that we have to do something surgical with.

About Dr. Harner, M.D.:
Dr. Christopher D. Harner, M.D., is a Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania Professor, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Medical Director, and works in the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

Visit Dr. Harner at the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine

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