DETAILED ANALYSIS OF PATIENTS WITH BILATERAL ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT INJURIES

To better understand anatomic and other possible predisposing factors for anterior cruciate ligament injuries, we retrospectively studied 31 patients with noncontact, bilateral injuries of this ligament. The 31 patients were carefully matched by age, sex, height, weight, and acti vity level with 23 control subjects who had no history of knee injury. All 54 subjects underwent a full clinical knee examination, joint hyp ermobility tests, a hamstring tightness assessment, a computerized tom ography scan analysis, and a plain view radiographic analysis, and wer e asked to provide a complete immediate-family history of knee ligamen t injury. In addition, the 31 patients in the experimental group under went a KT-1000 arthrometer knee laxity examination and were also asked to provide an injury profile, including mechanism of injury, treatmen t received for each injury, and the time interval between injuries. Me asurements obtained from the computerized tomography scan analysis dem onstrated a significantly wider lateral femoral condyle in the experim ental group compared with the control group, indicating that certain a natomic factors may predispose people to anterior cruciate ligament in jury. A significant difference was also found in the incidence rate of anterior cruciate ligament injury in the family history of the experi mental group compared with the control group, indicating a possible co ngenital aspect of this injury.