Syndesmosis treatment construct
An apparatus and method are provided for a syndesmosis treatment construct configured to be placed into a cinched configuration that presses a first bone against a second bone. The syndesmosis treatment construct comprises a proximal fixator to contact the first bone and a distal fixator to contact the second bone. A first suture and a second suture are parallelly looped through the distal fixator. A free splice slidably rides on proximal ends and distal ends of both of the first and second sutures. The distal ends are looped through the proximal fixator and bound within a stitch splice. The proximal ends are passed outside of the stitch splice and through the proximal fixator. The free splices compress and seize the proximal ends during pulling of the proximal ends by a practitioner so as to maintain the cinched configuration.
1 . A syndesmosis treatment construct for cinching a first bone and a second bone together, the syndesmosis treatment construct comprising:
a distal fixator configured to be passed through a bone hole across the first bone and the second bone and contacting the second bone;
a proximal fixator configured to contact the first bone;
a first suture and a second suture parallelly looped through the proximal fixator and the distal fixator such that a proximal end of the first suture and a proximal end of the second suture extend from the proximal fixator;
one or more free splices that slidably ride on adjacent portions of the first suture and the second suture; and
one or more stitch splices that fixedly receive distal ends of the first suture and the second suture.
2 . The syndesmosis treatment construct of claim 1 , wherein the proximal fixator includes a bar that separates a first aperture and a second aperture.
3 . The syndesmosis treatment construct of claim 2 , wherein the distal end of the first suture and the distal end of the second suture loop around the bar before being fixedly received by the one or more stitch splices.
4 . The syndesmosis treatment construct of claim 2 , wherein the proximal end of the first suture passes through the first aperture and the proximal end of the second suture passes through the second aperture.
5 . The syndesmosis treatment construct of claim 1 , wherein the proximal end of the first suture and the proximal end of the second suture exit the one or more free splices and extend adjacently to the one or more stitch splices toward the proximal fixator.
6 . The syndesmosis treatment construct of claim 5 , wherein the distal end of the first suture and the distal end of the second suture exit the one or more stitch splices, loop around a bar comprising the proximal fixator and are fixedly received into the one or more stitch splices.
7 . The syndesmosis treatment construct of claim 5 , wherein the one or more free splices are configured to compress the portions of the proximal ends within the one or more free splices during tensioning of the first suture and the second suture so as to maintain a cinched configuration of the first bone and the second bone.