Findings presented at the 2015 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition suggest what a lot of orthopedic surgeons have already suspected – that anterior cruciate ligament tears are on the rise among young athletes.
The research uncovered that the overall incidence of ACL tears among 6- to -18-year-old patients have increased by an average of 2.3 percent each year over the last 20 years.
“We hope these findings will help foster discussion both about how changes in pediatric athletic participation over the past 20 years may be impacting injury rates and how we can best develop youth injury prevention programs and athletic participation guidelines,” said Marc A. Tompkins, MD, an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Minnesota. “The data would suggest, for example, that all female athletes and males in the 15-16 year ages would be good candidates for injury prevention programs.”
When looking closer at the data, researchers noted:
- Males experienced an average overall increase in ACL tears of 2.2 percent per year.
- Males were most likely to tear their ACL at age 17.
- Females experienced an average overall increase in ACL tears of 2.5 percent per year.
- Females were most likely to tear their ACL at age 16.
- The rate of torn ACL surgery increased 3.0 percent per year over the duration of the 20-year study.
Dr. Silverman comments
This is an interesting study, and I’m glad to see the lead author is from Minnesota. I would certainly be interested in follow up studies that examined re-injury rates among adolescents who have undergone ACL surgery, or why ACL injuries have increased so dramatically over the last two decades.
If I had to guess, I’d assume the spike in the ACL injuries has to do with the ever-growing competitiveness of youth athletics. Kids are playing tackle football at younger ages, parents are pushing their children to practice and train year round, and kids are getting bigger, faster and stronger. Roughly 25 million kids are playing competitive youth sports, and the push to be better at an earlier age can overstress muscles and ligaments that are still developing.
I hope Dr. Tompkins and his team pursue further studies on the subject.
