ACL injury: Where are we now? Is prevention the key for all sports?

Abstract

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are one of the most common injuries of the knee, with an estimated incidence of 200,000 per year in the United States [1, 2]. Treatment of ACL injuries remains one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal procedures performed, affecting 1 in 3000 among the general population of the United States. In Norway, there is an annual population incidence of primary anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgeries of 34 per 100,000 citizens (85 per 100,000 citizens in the main at-risk age group of 16-39 years) [3]. ACL injuries in the pediatric and adolescent population has trended much higher in current literature, increasing by 147.8% over the 10-year span from 2005 to 2015, reaching an overall annual rate of 6.79 per 100,000 in patients aged 5-14 [4, 5].