Primary surgical treatment of anterior cruciate ligament ruptures. A long-term follow-up study.

We reviewed 52 patients who underwent primary surgical repair of their acutely injured ACL using a multiple loop, varying depth suture technique. The average followup was 6 years and 10 months. Nine patients (17%) were considered as having failed repairs, with failure based on the presence of clinical instability (giving way) with sports participation and a positive Lachman test and/or pivot shift maneuver. In addition, of 26 patients in whom KT-1000 (MEDmetric Corp., San Diego, CA) measurements were performed, 42% were found to have abnormal laxity. Although using multiple sutures in primary repair of the anterior cruciate may work in some patients, it is an unpredictable operative procedure and resulted in a 17% failure rate in our study.