The following is a transcript of a report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks that first aired March 11, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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More than 200,000 young, active people will have surgery this year to repair the anterior cruciate ligament in their knees. But thanks to a discovery made at UPMC Sports Medicine, many will have a better surgery called anatomical ACL reconstruction.

"We were three weeks in the season, and I came down straight-legged, and my athletic trainer said he heard a pop," said Duquesne University volleyball coach Gini Ullery. "Went to the training room, and that was it."

Ullery popped her left ACL. It's a common injury that sidelines players for months. UPMC's Dr. Freddie Fu repaired her ACL using the standard reconstruction. Then, 18 months later, Ullery was back in Fu's office.

"I felt my knee kind of rotate the first time, so I blew it off like nothing was wrong and then I felt it go again," said Ullery.

Fu knew exactly what happened. It would lead him to change his technique

For years if one or both ACL fibers were torn, "We go inside, we took everything out right away in seconds, and we'd drill to holes and connect it," said Fu.

Connecting just one left the knee unstable, and patients soon developed osteo-arthritis. After five years of studying what he and others had ignored, Fu developed "anatomical double-bundle ACL reconstruction," in which both ligaments are replaced.

"I do a very careful examination of ACL to check what remains so I know exactly where it's torn and how I should connect it," said Fu. "Also, if there's something still left, I should preserve it."

Ullery, the first to benefit from the surgery in 2005, is now 100 percent recovered.

"I can play with the girls in every day practice," she said. "I feel good."

Fu has performed more than 500 of his double-bundle ACL reconstructions. He said it replaces the natural anatomy and restores full joint mobility and stability. Surgeons are now coming in from all over the world to learn the technique.

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