Latest Trends in ACL Reconstruction

In this volume dedicated to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery, a wide variety of topics relating to patient evaluation, surgery, and recovery are included. Evaluation of the patient with physical examination is of critical importance both to make the diagnosis and also to evaluate patients postsurgery. The article on the objectification of the pivot shift test comes from a multinational collaboration funded by ISAKOS. It includes the most current information on how these patients can be evaluated and gives insight into the future of how our physical examination may be objectified. Graft selection remains an ongoing controversy with many options available to the ACL surgeon. Each graft has pros and cons and we include an article that reviews each in detail. In addition to graft choice, biological augmentation of surgery has received recent attention and we include an article from Japan on their latest advances in this area. Among the most controversial aspects of the ACL surgical technique is femoral socket creation and we present an article by investigators who have studied this issue with a prospective randomized trial. After surgery, once the athlete has recovered from the surgery and completed rehabilitation, the last step is to return to play. The article on this topic reviews not only physical criteria for return but also the mental and psychological effects of the return to sport after recovery from this injury. Lateral extra-articular augmentation surgery has also seen a renewed interest in the past few years and this topic is covered thoroughly in the article on lateral extra-articular tenodesis. Last, ACL graft rupture requiring revision surgery remains unfortunately too common and an article discussing how to approach this situation is included as well. We hope you enjoy this A to Z synopsis of topics related to ACL surgery.