Grin And BEAR It: Shore Physicians Group Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Dante Marconi Offers Groundbreaking ACL Repair with BEAR Implant
An ACL tear is one of the most common and frustrating injuries for athletes and active individuals. The traditional fix—surgical reconstruction using graft tissue—can restore stability, but it also comes with trade-offs: the need to harvest tissue from elsewhere in the body or rely on donor grafts, longer recovery, and the loss of the knee’s native ligament. Now, a new option is giving certain patients a chance to heal more naturally.
The BEAR® Implant—short for Bridge-Enhanced ACL Repair—is the first medical technology approved by the FDA that enables the body to heal a torn ACL rather than replacing it with a graft. It works by bridging the gap between the torn ends of the ACL and creating an ideal environment for the body to regenerate the ligament.
Shore Physicians Group Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Dante Marconi is one of a select few surgeons in South Jersey to perform ACL repair using a BEAR Implant.
“With a reconstruction, we either take tissue from the patient’s own knee—like the patellar or quadriceps tendon—or we use a cadaver graft,” said Dr. Marconi. “That tissue replaces the ACL, but you’re giving up something else in the process. You might end up with weakness or discomfort where we harvested the graft.”
The BEAR Implant avoids that trade-off. The implant is made of a special protein-based material and is soaked in the patient’s blood before being placed at the site of the tear. This encourages natural healing and reattachment of the torn ends of the ACL—provided the tear is near the bone and the procedure is performed within a specific window after injury.
Think of it like repairing a frayed rope. Traditional reconstruction cuts out the damaged rope and ties in a new one. The BEAR technique tries to mend the original rope with a special patch that encourages the fibers to fuse back together.
“The key is keeping the native ACL because it has proprioception fibers—basically, the nerves that tell your brain where your knee is in space,” Dr. Marconi said. “That feedback can be lost when we replace the ligament with a graft.”
Not all patients are candidates. The tear must be located near the bone, and the procedure has to be done within about two months of injury. But for those who qualify, the benefits are promising: a knee that feels more like it did before the injury, without the added trauma of graft harvesting.
Dr. Marconi was able to perform the procedure after encountering his first ideal candidate—a patient with the right tear pattern in the right timeframe. He had been training on the technique for over a year and was waiting for the right moment to bring it to the operating room.
“This isn’t something we’ll do all the time,” he said, “but it’s something we can do, and if it’s right for the patient, it can be a great option.”
With the addition of the BEAR Implant to his surgical offerings, Dr. Marconi is helping lead the way toward less invasive, more biologically sound options for ACL repair—giving patients in South Jersey a new reason to feel hopeful after a tear.
Dr. Dante Marconi treats patients at Shore Physicians Group’s Orthopaedic Division offices located at 710 Centre Street, 2nd Floor in Somers Point, NJ, and 4450 East Black Horse Pike, Mays Landing, NJ. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Marconi, call 609-365-6280.
