Repeated Anterior Cruciate Ligament Ruptures Dependence on Gender, the Most Common Types of Injuries and Transplants Used for Ligament Reconstruction

Abstract

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is important and the primary stabilizing structure of the knee. ACL is the most commonly injured knee ligament and can cause significant morbidity in all age groups. During this study we are going to analyze what type of traumas most commonly causes primary and repeated anterior cruciate ligament injuries, what transplants and their diameters were used during reconstruction operations and repeated ACL injuries depending on gender and knee side. Results. The average age of analyzed patients was 33.3±13.10. Distribution of ruptures between genders was: women 23.3%, men – 76.7% of cases. It was established that men had ACL repeated rupture significantly more often than women (p 0.05). Initial ACL rupture causes 91.3% of the cases was non-contact traumas and 8.7% was contact traumas. Repeated ACL rupture causes 85.4% was non-contact traumas and 14.6% was contact traumas. Statistically significant difference was found (p 0.05). Conclusions. Repeated ACL rupture was more common among men. Primary and secondary ACL ruptures happened more often during non-contact injury. No statistically significant difference between the sides of injury was found, both left and right violations occur at the same rate. Most commonly used transplant for the first ACL reconstruction was semitendinosus – gracilis tendon, for revision - patella proprium ligament transplant. During revision surgeries average 1.73 mm thicker transplants were used compared to primary reconstruction surgery.