Orthopedics Today reports on the findings of an HSS study conducted by Frank A. Cordasco, MD, MS, sports medicine surgeon at HSS, which demonstrated adolescent athletes experienced higher revision ACL surgery and return-to-sport-rates versus prepubescent athletes and skeletally mature athletes.

Dr. Cordasco and colleagues categorized 324 athletes younger than 20 years of age who underwent ACL reconstruction based on having 3-6 years of growth remaining (group 1), having 2-3 years of growth remaining (group 2), or being skeletally mature (group 3). Researchers selected the surgical technique based on skeletal age, using the all-epiphyseal technique with hamstring autograft in group 1, the partial transphyseal and complete transphyseal with hamstring autograft in group 2 and bone-tendon-bone autograft in group 3. Return to sport was defined as playing one full season in the same sport that the athlete was injured in.

“This is the first report to clearly demonstrate that younger athletes who have had an all-epiphyseal reconstruction with a hamstring autograft had better outcomes than older adolescents who had a hamstring autograft who were skeletally immature,” said Dr. Cordasco.

This article appears in the July 2019 print edition.