RESEARCH ARTICLE
Surgical and Biomechanical Perspectives on Osteoarthritis and the ACL Deficient Knee: A Critical Review of the Literature
Richard Z Fu*, 1, David D Lin2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 292
Last Page: 300
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-7-292
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001307010292
Article History:
Received Date: 26/11/2012Revision Received Date: 21/3/2013
Acceptance Date: 28/3/2013
Electronic publication date: 19/8/2013
Collection year: 2013

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
This review was undertaken to better understand the debate regarding the issue of osteoarthritis associated with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, from a surgical and biomechanical standpoint. Much of the current debate focuses on contributory surgical factors and their relative roles in increasing or decreasing the risk of future osteoarthritis development, primarily highlighting the controversy over whether reconstructive surgery itself is necessarily protective. This review addresses the evolution of ACL reconstruction techniques over time, and with a view to thoroughly examine the role of surgery, outcome differences in procedural technique are reviewed, with a focus on open versus arthroscopic methods, graft choice and the use of a double versus single bundle reconstruction technique.
Moreover, other potentially important contributory factors are identified and discussed, such as intrinsic biomechanical alterations sustained at the time of initial injury, and how these may have a more significant role with regard to future osteoarthritic changes in the knee than previously attributed.