Thought we knew every part of the human body? Think again.

Surgeons in Belgium recently discovered a new ligament in the human knee. Publishing their research in the peer-reviewed Journal of Anatomy, the knee specialists provided the first anatomical description of the fibrous tissue, called the anterolateral ligament, or ALL, for short.

Though French surgeon Paul Segond proposed the existence of an additional ligament in the human knee as early as 1879, the structure evaded classification for many years.

Working from the French surgeon’s notion, the team, led by the University of Leuven’s Dr. Steven Claes, dissected cadaver knees in search of the “pearly, fibrous band” Segond described. What they found was a “well-defined ligamentous structure” that connects the femur (thighbone) with the anterolateral tibia (shinbone) in 40 of the 41 human knees they dissected, the authors wrote in the study.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/new-ligament-human-knee-anterolateral_n_4221043.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular