Revison Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with or without lateral extra articular reconstruction. Comparative study of 36 cases.

Abstract

Introduction: the aim of this study is to compare the clinical outcomes and return to sports of a consecutive series of patients treated for revision ACL with and without a lateral extra-articular reconstruction. The secondary objective was to analyze the failure rate in both groups.

Materials and methods: we retrospectively evaluated a series of patients treated for isolated revision ACL between 2014 and 2015 (Group 1) and revision ACL associated with a lateral extra-articular plasty from 2015 to 2016 (Group 2). All patients were evaluated with clinical examination, subjective scales of Lysholm and IKDC, return to sports, arthrometric KT-1000 evaluation, magnetic resonance (MR) at one-year follow-up and failure rate.

Results: thirty-six patients were evaluated, eighteen in each Group with a mean follow-up of fifty-three months (range 37-73). For the LEAP, in thirteen cases we performed a lateral tenodesis with ilio-tibial band and in five cases a reconstruction using allograft. The median age was 30.5 (IQR 27-36 years) for Group 1 and 26.5 (IQR 24-33 years) for Group 2. The median pre and postoperative Lysholm score was 65 (IQR 61-72) and 91 (IQR 87-98) in Group 1, and 72 (IQR 53-75) and 90 (IQR 79-95) in Group 2 (p 0.1). The median pre and postoperative IKDC score was 55 (IQR 45-65) and 80 (IQR 74-94) in Group 1, and 56 (IQR 48-67) and 76 (IQR 68-84) in Group 2 (p 0.11). Sixteen (89%) patients return to sports in each Group. The failure rate was 17% (n = 3) for Group 1 and 5.5% (n = 1) for Group 2 (p >0.6) at a mean of twenty-four months.

Conclusion: clinical outcomes and return to sports were similar for both groups. Even though the failure rate was three times less in Group 2, this difference was not statistically significant. Greater number of patients and more follow-up is necessary to establish any conclusion.