To understand how this works, you need to understand the dog's anatomy within the knee or stifle.
This will require long term antibiotic treatment and may ultimately require that the plate and screws be removed once the bone has healed, usually around 3 months. Recovery from TPLO surgeries varies depending on the veterinarian performing the surgery. The end result of this process is that it puts the knee in a neutral position during weight-bearing and effectively eliminates the need for the dog to have a cruciate ligament. Tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO) is a very commonly performed surgery to treat dog cruciate ligament injury. With the TPLO surgery, the outcome in a majority of cases (90%+) is good to excellent function on the leg. Breakage of screws holding the plate can result in delayed bone healing or the bone not healing at all. Complications with the TPLO can occur and range from 10-20% depending on what you read. In people, the tibial plateau is a flat surface. This is a complication of every procedure that is done to repair cruciate ligament tears and occurs in about 10% of dogs. The plateau is then stabilized in this new position with a specially designed bone plate and bone screws while it heals back together in this abnormal position. The plateau is where both cruciate ligaments orginate from and is also where the two menisci sit. Below I am describing the TPLO, what it is, how it works, complications, and recovery.
If you would like to learn more about cruciate ligament disease or other surgical diseases in dogs and cats, or if you would like a more detailed description of TPLOs with pictures to help understand it, please visit TPLO surgery for more information.Breakage of the bone screws holding the plate in place occurs more frequently than breakage of the plate. We suspect that this leads to early degeneration of the ligament over time and is why a majority of dogs get cruciate ligament tears without having a traumatic injury to the joint like people require.
This process has been termed cranial tibial translation in our field. Subsequent meniscal damage after the surgery can occur which would require a second surgery to remove the damaged meniscus. Fracture of the tibia or fibula can occur but is also rare. Robert Vonau is a board certified veterinary surgeon with a mobile surgery practice in Denver, Colorado. By doing this, when the muscles around the knee contract against the now almost flat tibial plateau, the two bones are neutral and there is no desire for the femur to shift on the tibia. In dogs, however, because they don't walk upright, their tibial plateau is at an angle, usually slanted downwards at about 25 degrees. This means the dog returns to normal or near-normal performance with the affected leg. The most common complications involve the bone plate and screws that are placed to hold the bone still while it heals. There are many different ways of treating cruciate ligament injury in the dog and there is, unfortunately, no "right" way of treating it. Inflammation of the patellar tendon can occur during the recovery leading to pain.
