Dr. Tomas Pevny introduces new ACL repair technology to ValleyOrtho

Most athletes try to avoid dwelling on serious injuries — especially ones that could lead to surgery, long recovery times and uncertain returns to peak performance.

Dr. Tomas Pevny, a 30-year Roaring Fork Valley resident and one of the region’s leading orthopedic surgeons, has long been drawn to cutting-edge technology. Now, he’s helping introduce a surgical innovation at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs and its Mid-Valley Surgery Center in Willits that aims to reshape the treatment of torn anterior cruciate ligaments, or ACLs.

Valley View recently announced that Pevny is offering the Bridge-Enhanced ACL Restoration (BEAR) procedure, one of the first major advancements in ACL treatment in more than three decades.

“One of my philosophies has always been to preserve the body’s natural anatomy,” Pevny said. “I’ve always been interested in ACL repair rather than reconstruction where you use other tissue to act as a substitute — which means you’re taking out the native ACL.”

The ACL connects the thighbone (femur) to the shinbone (tibia), stabilizing the knee, controlling movement and protecting against hyperextension. Traditional reconstruction often requires replacing the damaged ligament with part of the patient’s own hamstring, quadriceps or patellar tendon — a process that typically requires nine to 12 months of recovery.

Approved by the FDA in 2020 for both adults and juveniles, the BEAR implant allows the body’s natural ligament to regrow by using a collagen-based scaffold, rather than a graft or simple suture repair.

“The BEAR is a bovine collagen implant, and studies have been showing that it enhances the natural ACL’s healing much more than a regular repair with stitches,” Pevny said. “The implant acts biologically, so it enhances healing and acts like a scaffolding so the ACL tissue can grow over it and eventually reattach to the bone.”

Unlike full reconstruction, the BEAR procedure uses a smaller incision, takes less time in the operating room, and may reduce the need for medication and physical therapy — a potentially less daunting option in a valley known for its active, outdoor lifestyle.

“I was skeptical at first because there wasn’t a lot of data, and as a surgeon you need data to support decisions,” Pevny said. “But now there is a lot of data, even in direct comparison to reconstruction surgeries, where the right type of individual is coming out just as good, if not better, than they would be with reconstruction.”

He said some patients who’ve undergone both procedures on different knees have reported faster recovery and less pain after the BEAR surgery.

“When I see patients with an ACL (injury) now, the first thing I think of is, ‘Is this person a candidate for the BEAR procedure?'” Pevny said. “I’ve had patients that I did an ACL reconstruction on one side and then they injured the other knee, that I did a repair with a BEAR implant, and all of them have said it’s night and day. Less pain, quicker recovery, their knee just feels so much better. Their knee feels like their own knee.”

A fourth-generation physician originally from Texas, Pevny first came to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1995 for a sports medicine fellowship in Aspen and never left. Over the past 30 years, he’s built a reputation as one of Colorado’s top orthopedic surgeons and an early adopter of new surgical techniques.

“I have done a select amount of repairs over the years on certain tears that I felt like I could preserve the patient’s anatomy,” he said. “I have always been interested in the concept, but studies dating back to the ’80s and ’90s showed that repairs always did terrible.”

Those early studies kept him wary of newer approaches, he said, until data began to show the BEAR procedure was outperforming expectations.

“I don’t think it’s super mainstream because it’s new. A lot of surgeons get comfortable in their techniques,” Pevny said. “There are some college athletes, a lot of elite high school athletes getting the BEAR procedure. I think you’ll start seeing that in professional athletes in the next year or two as people get more comfortable. I think it’ll get there.”

For more information about ValleyOrtho or the BEAR procedure, visit vvh.org/valleyortho.