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Health-related quality of life after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

  • Knee
  • Published:
Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy Aims and scope

Abstract

Purpose

Recently the patients’ own evaluation has become an important complement to post-operative clinical assessments. For many patients, there is a change in life situation after an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACL), which may affect the health-related quality of life in many ways. The aims of the study were to evaluate the results in terms of health-related quality of life 2–7 years after an ACL reconstruction and to compare the results with a gender- and age-matched control group. Furthermore, to compare the results for males and females using either the bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft (BPTB) or hamstring tendon autograft (HT).

Methods

The SF-36 questionnaire was send by mail to 793 consecutive patients after an ACL reconstruction. Five hundred and forty-four (69%) patients returned the questionnaires leaving 419 patients (161 female, 258 male) who were analysed and matched to a Swedish control group (n = 2,410).

Results

The patient group obtained significantly higher scores for General Health (GH), Social Function (SF), Role Emotional (RE) and Mental Health (MH). The control group obtained significantly higher scores for Physical Function (PF) compared with the total ACL group and with the BPTB and HS subgroups. There were no significant differences between males and females.

Conclusion

After ACL reconstruction, the patients reported good health-related quality of life in comparison with a matched sample of the general population. To incorporate non-disease-specific health assessment measures are important to further refine the disease-specific outcome measurements to evaluate the effect of the treatments and provide cost-effective treatment algorithms.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support was provided by the Research and Development Department of the Northern Älvsborg/Bohus County Council and the Swedish Centre for Research in Sports.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedics, NU-Hospital Organisation, Uddevalla, Sweden

    Olle Månsson & Jüri Kartus

  2. Department of Research and Development, NU-Hospital Organisation, 451 85, Trollhattan, Sweden

    Ninni Sernert

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  1. Olle Månsson
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  2. Jüri Kartus
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  3. Ninni Sernert
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Correspondence to Ninni Sernert.

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Månsson, O., Kartus, J. & Sernert, N. Health-related quality of life after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 19, 479–487 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00167-010-1303-1

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