Abstract
The early surgical management of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears in children remains controversial. The argument for nonoperative treatment is driven by concerns about the risk of growth arrest caused by a transphyseal procedure. On the other hand, early surgical reconstruction is favoured because of poor compliance with conservative treatment and increased risk of secondary damage due to instability. This paper reports a series of 39 very young children who had an ACL reconstruction using a transphyseal procedure with a hamstring graft. Patients were followed to skeletal maturity or for a minimum of three years. Only those patients with either a chronological age less than 14 years or with a Tanner stage of 1 and 2 of puberty were included in the study. Thirty children were Tanner 1 or 2 and nine were Tanner 3-4 but were younger than 14. The mean age at operation was 12.2 years (Range 9.5-14.2, Median 12.4). The mean follow up was 60.7 months (range 36-129, median: 51) months. Thirty four patients had attained skeletal maturity at the last follow up. The mean Lysholm score improved from 72.4 pre-operatively to 95.86 postoperatively (p<0.0001). The mean Tegner activity scale was 4.23 after injury and it improved to 7.52 after operation (p<0.0001)) which was a reasonable comparison to the pre- injury score of 8.0. One patient had a mild valgus deformity with no functional disturbance. No other growth related abnormalities including limb length discrepancy were noted. There has been one re-rupture but all others had good or excellent outcome. This is one of the largest series reporting the long term results of ACL reconstruction in very young children. Most other studies include children up to the age of 16. Based on our results we can conclude that transphyseal ACL reconstruction modified for very young patients is a safe procedure.
