Ligament · Knee

Anterolateral ligament

A band described on the outer side of the knee, running from the region of the lateral femoral epicondyle downward and forward to the front-outer part of the upper tibia, between the fibular head and the tubercle where the iliotibial band inserts. Its status is genuinely unsettled: some anatomists describe it as a discrete ligament with consistent attachments, others as no more than a thickening of the joint capsule that cannot be separated from the tissue around it — and the disagreement is about whether it exists as a named structure at all, not merely about what it does. This record exists because the anatomical model draws it and readers will meet the name. It is not a statement that the question is closed.