A Bibliometric Analysis of ACL Injuries in Female Athletes

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Since 1972 Title IX legislation there has been an increase in female sports participation, and with that there has been an increase in female related injuries. For example, the female athlete has a two to eight times more frequency of injuring her ACL compared to males. This has led to additional research focusing on why female athletes have a higher disposition for ACL injuries. The aim of this study is to quantitatively assess the literature for authorship relationships, general publication trends, and keyword occurrences through conducting a bibliometric review. METHODS: The data used in this analysis was collected from PubMed. A MeSH search was conducted with the following parameters: (women or female[MeSH Terms]) AND (ACL injury[MeSH Terms])) NOT (male[MeSH Terms])) NOT (men[MeSH Terms])) NOT (man[MeSH Terms]) on February 11th 2025. RESULTS: The bibliometric analysis resulted in 435 publications from the year 2000 to 2025. There was a steady increase in the number of publications over the observed study period. The top keywords included: "ACL injury" and "female", and common sports related ACL injuries like soccer and basketball. Additional noteworthy findings included soccer, basketball, quadriceps, and biomechanics. There was linkage between numerous authors associated with the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center. CONCLUSION: The paper provides an analysis on current female ACL injury trends. It is important to discuss injury related disparities between female and male athletes, so prevention programs can be put into place.