Why Adolescent ACL Reconstruction Should Be Operated Early

  Regarding anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction in adolescents: surgery should be performed as early as possible for the following reasons: 1. If an adolescent ACL rupture is not operated on and then operated on after the growth spurt is completed, often the degeneration of the knee is already heavy and can lead to complications such as meniscal tears, and the longer you wait, the more serious such complications will be. Therefore late surgery, especially a few years late, is harmful for sure.  2, The most serious problem of delaying surgery for adolescent ACL rupture is the cessation of femoral epicondylar development, resulting in a large medial femoral condyle and a small epicondyle. Even if ACL reconstruction is performed after growing into a human, the lateral instability and oscillation caused by the small epicondyle cannot be solved.  3, the current domestic and international research results of ACL surgery in adolescence affecting height is rare.  4, Adolescent ACL surgery, if from the use of tendons (using their own tendons, not using allogeneic tendons and artificial ligaments, not using tendons with bone blocks – because bone blocks in the bone tract will stimulate the surrounding epiphyseal closure to affect the growth), tendon fixation (the femoral end with the microporous plate suspension method on the femoral end of the epiphyseal growth plate is the least affected, and (the tibial end is fixed with a double portal nail with minimal impact on the epiphyseal growth plate at the tibial end) and the diameter of the bone tract (greater than 5mm diameter, ≤8mm diameter is the best, not too thick, which will lead to too serious epiphyseal damage), etc. using special techniques for adolescents, the impact on growth and development will be reduced to a minimum.  5. We have measured the length and morphology of the limbs after ACL surgery in more than 200 cases of adolescents and have not found a single case with abnormalities. However, it is still important to tell parents that there are certain risks associated with the surgery.