It’s been recognized for years that female athletes are more likely to suffer from anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injures than their male counterparts. In fact in a 2015 paper, doctors said that the incidence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries is two to eightfold greater in female compared with male athletes. Reasons? Anatomic, hormonal, and neuromuscular factors.1
One study revealed that female soccer players are less likely to return to soccer than males after having ACL reconstruction surgery and that ACL reconstruction surgery on the non-dominant limb puts the dominant limb at risk of ACL injury.2 Because of this gender gap, many injury prevention programs were developed, yet many fall short.3
ACL injury treatment – looking at laxity
It has been reported that over 70% of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries occur in noncontact situations. Increased joint laxity and reduced knee stiffness in female knees have been suggested as possible explanations for the higher ACL injury rates in females.4 Please see the supportive article – treating ligament laxity.
Because of the poor outcome of ACL injury treatment options, especially reconstruction surgery, much of the literature over recent years have focused on prevention programs with a focus on ligament laxity and surrounding muscle conditioning. While these may help, they cannot completely eliminate ACL injury in the female (or male) athlete population. Sports injuries are unfortunately common and what is needed is an alternative treatment that allows the athlete to completely heal, rehab and return to top performance.
Doctors are now speculating that ACL reconstruction surgery options using biomaterials such as stem cell therapy and Prolotherapy may soon be on the horizon. In 2015 research doctors say that different strategies, from in vitro ACL regeneration in bioreactor systems to bio-enhanced repair and regeneration, are under constant development.5
Listen as Prolotherapist, Ross Hauser, MD explains why Prolotherapy is an excellent treatment option for ACL injury.
1. Johnson JS, Morscher MA, Jones KC, et al. Gene expression differences between ruptured anterior cruciate ligaments in young male and female subjects. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2015 Jan 7;97(1):71-9. doi: 10.2106/JBJS.N.00246.
2. Lohmander, L. S., Östenberg, A., Englund, M. and Roos, H. (2004), High prevalence of knee osteoarthritis, pain, and functional limitations in female soccer players twelve years after anterior cruciate ligament injury. Arthritis & Rheumatism, 50: 3145–3152. doi: 10.1002/art.20589
3. Brophy RH, Schmitz L, Wright RW, et all. Return to play and future ACL injury risk after ACL reconstruction in soccer athletes from the multicenter orthopaedic outcomes network (MOON) group. Am J Sports Med November 2012 vol. 40 no. 11 2517-2522.
4. Boguszewski DV, Cheung EC, Joshi NB, Markolf KL, McAllister DR. Male-Female Differences in Knee Laxity and Stiffness: A Cadaveric Study. Am J Sports Med. 2015 Oct 13. pii: 0363546515608478. [Epub ahead of print]
5. Nau T Teuschl A. Regeneration of the anterior cruciate ligament: Current strategies in tissue engineering. World J Orthop. 2015 Jan 18;6(1):127-36. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v6.i1.127. eCollection 2015.
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