Ligament tension is an important factor that can affect the success of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures. However, surgeons currently lack objective approaches for assessing tension in a particular ligament intraoperatively. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of noninvasive shear wave tensiometry to characterize stress in medial and lateral collateral ligaments (MCLs and LCLs) ex vivo and evaluate the capacity of shear wave speed to predict axial load. Nine porcine MCL and LCL specimens were subjected to cyclic axial loading while shear wave speeds were measured using laser vibrometry. We found that squared shear wave speed increased linearly with stress in both the MCL (r²_avg = 0.94) and LCL (r²_avg = 0.98). Shear wave speeds were slightly lower in the MCL than the LCL when subjected to a comparable axial stress (p < 0.001). Specimen-specific calibrations predicted tension within 13.0 N, or 5.2% of the maximum load. A leave-one-out analysis was also performed and showed that calibrated relationships based on ligament type could predict axial tension within 15% of the maximum load. These observations suggest it may be feasible to use noninvasive shear wave speed measures as a proxy of ligament loading, which in the future might enhance decision making during orthopedic procedures such as TKA.

韧带张力是可能影响全膝关节置换术（TKA）手术成功的重要因素。但是，外科医生目前缺乏在手术中评估特定韧带张力的客观方法。这项研究的目的是调查使用无创剪切波张力法来表征离体内侧和外侧副韧带（MCL和LCL）的应力，并评估剪切波速度预测轴向载荷的能力。九只猪的MCL和LCL标本经受了周期性的轴向载荷，同时使用激光振动法测量了剪切波的速度。我们发现MCL（r ² _avg  = 0.94）和LCL（r ² _avg = 0.98）。当承受相当的轴向应力时，MCL中的剪切波速度略低于LCL（p <0.001）。标本特定的校准预测张力在13.0 N以内，即最大负载的5.2％。还进行了留一法分析，结果表明，基于韧带类型的校准关系可以预测轴向张力在最大载荷的15％以内。这些观察结果表明，使用非侵入性剪切波速度测量作为韧带加载的替代方法可能是可行的，这将来可能会增强骨科手术（例如TKA）中的决策。