[Incidence and treatment of fresh connective tissue injuries of the knee in winter sports].

For the last 18 years 21,808 alpine skiing injuries have been treated at the hospital of Davos. There is a great decline in the incidence of lower leg fractures with a contrary development of knee ligament injuries. Today half of the lower leg injuries are knee injuries. To ameliorate the documentation of all patients with acute injuries of the knee ligaments we are using a detailed questionnaire, including the mechanism of injury, release of the safety binding, skiing ability, pattern of instability and the techniques of treatment. We report of the evaluation of 145 patients with knee ligament injuries. It is the aim of that protocol to follow up all these cases up to 5 years.