Abstract
IntroductionThe anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most common injured knee ligaments and at the same time, one of the most frequent injuries seen in the sport orthopaedic practice. Due to the clinical relevance of ACL injuries, numerous papers focussing on this topic including biomechanical-, basic science-, clinical- or animal studies, were published. The purpose of this study was to determine the most frequently cited scientific articles which address this subject, establish a ranking of the 50 highest cited papers and analyse them according to their characteristics.MethodsThe 50 highest cited articles related to Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury were searched in Thomson ISI Web of Science® by the use of defined search terms. All types of scientific papers with reference to our topic were ranked according to the absolute number of citations and analyzed for the following characteristics: journal title, year of publication, number of citations, citation density, geographic origin, article type and level of evidence.ResultsThe 50 highest cited articles had up to 1624 citations. The top ten papers on this topic were cited 600 times at least. Most papers were published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The publication years spanned from 1941 to 2007, with the 1990s and 2000s accounting for half of the articles (n = 25). Seven countries contributed to the top 50 list, with the USA having by far the most contribution (n = 40). The majority of articles could be attributed to the category “Clinical Science & Outcome”. Most of them represent a high level of evidence.DiscussionScientific articles in the field of ACL injury are highly cited. The majority of these articles are clinical studies that have a high level of evidence. Although most of the articles were published between 1990 and 2007, the highest cited articles in absolute and relative numbers were published in the early 1980s. These articles contain well established scoring- or classification systems.ConclusionThe identification of important papers will help current clinicians and scientists to get an overview on past and current trends in that special field of ACL injury and provides a basis for both further discussion as well as future research.
Highlights
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most common injured knee ligaments and at the same time, one of the most frequent injuries seen in orthopaedic practice
Search strategy In July 2016, Thomson ISI Web of Science® was searched for the following search terms BCruciate^, BCruciate Ligament^, BACL^, BGracilis^, BGracilis Tendon^ BSemitendinosus^, BSemitendinosus Tendon^, BPatella Tendon^, BHamstring^, BKnee Ligament^, BLigament^ BQuadriceps Tendon^, BInstability^, BJoint Instability^, BPCL^, BUnhappy Triad^, BArthroscopy^, BReconstruction^, BDrawer Test^, BDrawer Sign^, BLachmann^, BPivot Shift^
All types of scientific papers with reference to the ACL were included in the study and ranked according to the number of highest citations
Summary
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most common injured knee ligaments and at the same time, one of the most frequent injuries seen in the sport orthopaedic practice. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most common injured knee ligaments and at the same time, one of the most frequent injuries seen in orthopaedic practice. ACL rupture is a serious knee injury that affects mainly physically active young people [5] It is usually the result of a non-contact injury whereby a combination of movements such as femoral adduction and internal rotation, knee flexion, or tibial rotation with the foot and ankle in valgus result in partial or complete anterior cruciate ligament tears [6]. For sports-active patients and athletes, as well as for patients with complex knee (−ligament) injuries, the operative treatment seems to be the procedure of choice [8, 9]
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