• Satoshi Ochiai, Tetsuo Hagino, Shinya Senga, Masanori Saito, and Hirotaka Haro.
• The Sports Medicine and Knee Center, National Hospital Organization, Kofu National Hospital, 11-35 Tenjin-cho, Kofu, Yamanashi, 400-8533, Japan, hxcmk230@ybb.ne.jp.
• Arch Orthop Trauma Surg. 2014 Jun 1; 134 (6): 813-9.

IntroductionTo verify the usefulness of and optimal timing for conducting anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction, we evaluated and compared baseline characteristics and surgical outcomes in patients with ACL injury divided into acute and chronic groups.Patients And Methods101 patients after ACL reconstruction were studied. Patients who underwent surgery within 8 weeks after injury were classified as acute group (n = 40), and those having surgery after 8 weeks as chronic group (n = 61). SF-36, VAS, Lysholm score, anterior tibial translation, and pivot shift were assessed before surgery and 6, 18 and 30 months after surgery. The results of two groups were compared.ResultsIn the preoperative SF-36 survey, physical and mental health scores were lower than the national standard scores in both groups. Physical health score was significantly lower in acute group, although mental health score was not significantly different between two groups. Preoperative VAS and Lysholm score were significantly poorer in acute group compared to chronic group. However, preoperative anterior tibial translation and pivot shift were not significantly different between the two groups. In postoperative evaluations, all parameters were improved significantly compared to preoperative values in both groups, and no significant differences were observed between the two groups.DiscussionAll evaluation methods showed significant improvements after surgery in both acute and chronic groups, confirming that ACL reconstruction is useful for both acute and chronic injuries. However, preoperative evaluations by SF-36, VAS, and Lysholm scale yielded different results in two groups, indicating the need to evaluate acute and chronic cases separately. Development of a specific evaluation method that is valid for any duration from injury to surgery is desirable.

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