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Official Journal of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology

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Health-related quality of life in patients with anterior cruciate ligament insufficiency undergoing arthroscopic reconstruction: a practice-based Italian normative group in comorbid-free patients

Abstract

Background

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) insufficiency has not been assessed in comorbid-free patients to date. An observational study was therefore conducted on a practice-based sample to test the hypothesis that SF-36 scoring in patients with chronic ACL insufficiency differs from the age- and gender-matched Italian norm.

Materials and methods

Chronically ACL-insufficient patients with or without meniscal and/or focal chondral lesions were enrolled in the study. Exclusion criteria were acute ACL tear, severe and diffuse chondral lesions, concomitant knee major ligamentous injuries and/or fractures requiring surgery, previous ACL surgery and infectious, neoplastic and inflammatory disease. Knee function was evaluated by International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) form, HRQoL with the SF-36 questionnaire, and associated medical comorbidities by a Self-Administered Comorbidity Questionnaire (SCQ).

Results

A total of 316 consecutive patients, 265 males and 51 females (median age 25 years, range 15-22 years) met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. SF-36 norm-based scoring showed that the Physical Functioning, Role Physical, Bodily Pain, and Social Functioning domains were significantly lower than the Italian norm; the Role Emotional domain was also lower than the norm, but the difference was not significant. Conversely, the General Health and Mental Health domains scored significantly higher than the norm; the Vitality domain also exceeded, albeit not significantly, the norm.

Conclusions

The decision-making process leading to ACL reconstruction currently emphasises the evaluation of knee function and patients-level of activity. The findings in our study, by showing that chronic ACL insufficiency significantly affects HRQoL in otherwise healthy patients, suggest that a multidimensional evaluation including HRQoL in addition to knee function might be integrated into outcome assessment.

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Correspondence to V. Calvisi.

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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Calvisi, V., De Vincentiis, B., Palumbo, P. et al. Health-related quality of life in patients with anterior cruciate ligament insufficiency undergoing arthroscopic reconstruction: a practice-based Italian normative group in comorbid-free patients. J Orthopaed Traumatol 9, 233–238 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10195-008-0034-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10195-008-0034-2

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