Reconstruction du LCA chez le sportif de compétition. Évaluation, à court terme,après reprise du sport

Background

Most studies have observed satisfactory outcome after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. The best series report 80 to 90% success, irrespective of the type of operation. The purpose of this work was to investigate resumption of sports activities after ACL reconstruction. We studied the impact of the conditions of sports activity after the operation, gender, type of sport, presence of an extra-articular reinforcement and time since surgery.

Material and method

In order to search for significant differences between the postoperative and follow-up scores, a questionnaire with a subjective IKDC grid was addressed 12 months after their hospitalization to all athletes who had undergone ACL reconstruction at the CERS from 1^st January, 2003 through 31^st October, 2004.

Results

For the period considered, 2248 athletes were hospitalized at the CERS for ACL reconstruction. The response rate was 43% (969 responses at 12 months). There was no significant difference between the hospitalized population and the responders in terms of type of sports activity or type of graft. There was however a significant female predominance among responders (p = 0.01). Mean follow-up was 13.9 ± 2.9 months. Reconstruction methods were: hamstring graft 54%, free patellar graft 43%, MacIntosh fascia lata 2%, MacIntosh quadriceps 1%. The main activity was a pivot sport for 74% of the athletes. Male gender predominated: 77%. There was no difference regarding postoperative training, but competition level was achieved more readily by males (65% versus 54%, p = 0.0038), since more females stated resumption of competition was not an objective. It was also noted that resumption of training occurred earlier for gliding sports than for pivot–contact sports (7.32 ± 2.09 months versus 8.23 ± 2.66 months, p = 0.021). The presence of a lateral reinforcement did not have a significant impact on resumption of sports activities which was more frequent in the hamstring group than the patellar group (16% versus 7%, p < 0.0001) and more frequent in the pivot–contact sports (p = 0.0039). Regarding the role of the surgical technique, resumption of training and competition was better after hamstring plasty compared with patellar tendon plasty for follow-up less than or equal to 12 months (p = 0.0009 and 0.0001 respectively). The subjective IKDC score was also significantly better in the hamstring group for the period considered (p = 0.0006). The differences observed early in the follow-up resolved over time and no significant difference was observed at 18 and 22 months. Regarding the MacIntosh fascia lata plasty, resumption of competition was significantly earlier (7.67 ± 1.87 months) compared with hamstring plasty (9.69 ± 2.58 months) and patellar tendon plasty (9.65 ± 3 months). Resumption of training (90%) and competition (76%) was also better with the MacIntosh fascia lata plasty compared with the two other techniques but the difference was not significant. These differences, in favor of the MacIntosh fascia lata plasty, might have been due to a recruitment bias since the level of the sports activities was significantly higher in the MacIntosh population than in the populations of the other two methods.

Conclusion

This study is of particular interest because of the size of the homogeneous study population resulting from the highly selective recruitment of athletes at the CERS. This study is generally in agreement with prior data in the literature, particularly concerning the rate of resumed training one year after surgery. This study shows that the patellar tendon plasty reaches maturity more slowly than the hamstring plasty although the two techniques yielded comparable results at 18 months for all criteria studied.