Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center

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Information about project titled 'A national register for ACL injuries'

A national register for ACL injuries

Details about the project - category Details about the project - value
Project status: Published
Project manager: Lars-Petter Granan
Supervisor(s): Lars Engebretsen, Roald Bahr
Coworker(s): Kristoffer Solumshengslet, Karianne Ytterstad

Description

Cruciate ligament injuries in the knee occur frequently in sports. The injuries lead to substantial medical disability, both in the short and long term. In Norway younger athletes are usually treated with surgery, while older athletes are treated with rehabilitation exercise or in some cases with surgery. Approximately 1.000 athletes are surgically treated on an annual basis in Norway, but the exact number is unknown.

At the moment a number of surgical procedures are in use. The surgery is difficult and of great importance for the final outcome. The surgical procedures have improved, and patients have a good chance of acquiring adequate stability in the knee, sufficient to make it possible to continue sports at the top level. Nevertheless, surgery has not been shown to prevent the development of degenerative joint disease (osteoarthritis) in the knee. Although some risk factors for osteoarthritis may be more important than others; these are largely unknown. In the last few years considerable resources have been invested in prophylactic work in some sports. Nevertheless, it seems like the number of injuries increases from one year to the next.


 

The objective of this study is to establish a register for all the cruciate ligament injuries treated surgically in Norway. Through this register we hope to be able to contribute to quality control and improvement through:
- eliminating methods that result in an unacceptable outcome at an early stage
- evaluating the outcome after surgical treatment with different methods
- mapping the importance of prognostic factors
- evaluating the importance of different methods of rehabilitation after surgical treatment

A data base must be developed; forms must be developed and pilot tested, and at a later stage at a selection of hospitals and casualty clinics. When this is done, analyses will be able to forecast details about causal factors, treatments of choice, outcome etc. The data base will be accessible for everybody working with cruciate ligament injury research for application in their own analyses.