Murphy – TPLO Surgery Complication

CCL Injury, TPLO Surgey

CCL Injury, TPLO Surgey

My boxer Murphy, is a 6 year old very active and healthy boy. He had a partial tear in his CCL and excessive inflammation in his knee joint (unfortunately common in boxers). Today was his TPLO surgery and when the vet called she said there was a ‘slight complication’ during the procedure. She went on to tell me that the rod she placed in the tibia for stability an manipulation broke off in his bone when she was trying to extract it…WHAT?! Her conclusion during the surgery was to leave the rod in the bone because it would cause too much soft tissue trauma to remove it and that when this has happened most dogs form scar tissue around the rod and don’t have any further discomfort from it, but IF he did she would go in for another surgery and work to remove the broken off rod.

Still trying to wrap my mind around this and what to do next if anything.

3 thoughts on “Murphy – TPLO Surgery Complication

  1. That sounds awful. My son’s lab had both knees done with TPLO.. 2nd time she had a reaction to the metal and it had to be removed. That’s been 4 years ago and she’s as wild as ever! Our 10 y/o lab just tore hers last week and I’m doing research to decide between TPLO and TRA. Good Luck and hope all goes well!

    1. Good luck with your decision but keep in mind TTA implant is harder to remove than TPLO in case, it’s always good to take that into consideration. do your research on it but that’s what I found while I was doing my research.
      But if your dog is 10 yrs old, you should also research conservative methods.

  2. Somewhat similar to my situation, my dog had TPLO back in February and the vet broke a drill bit in his bone, said he tried to remove it but it was too complicated and left it there and told me it should not be an issue.

    3 weeks ago, we had the implant removed and drill bit removed with another more qualified doctor. it was not necessary due to drill bit but I think because the original TPLO surgery took more than double the time it should have, my dog got an infection at the implant that created problems so we had to have it removed. And I’m so glad I did because apparently the vet who did the original TPLO used and older type of implant (Slocum) that has been associated with bone cancer. Luckily we got that removed sooner than later.

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