Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is the most commonly injured knee ligament in athletes and can cause significant morbidity in all age groups. ACL injuries can be particularly devastating to young athletes. Although numerous procedures have been devised to treat ACL tears, they have limited cure rates. Therefore, it is essential to find techniques or processes to foresee the risk of injury to ACL to adopt appropriate preventive measures. Approximately three-fourths of mechanical injuries of ACL are noncontact type, suggesting that early recognition of this risk...

Subject population: First 25 subjects undergoing knee MRI at our hospital who satisfied the following inclusion criteria were prospectively studied: a) Subjects in whom ACL injury has been diagnosed on MRI b) It is a self-reported non-contact ACL injury c) Those who are willing to participate in the study and d) Those who sign our institutional review board - approved informed consent. Following exclusion criteria were used: a) History of trauma to the soft tissue of the lower extremity requiring surgical repair/reconstruction (excluding ACL tears)...

No significantdifference was observed amongst the ACL-injured and control groups for age (P=0.890), height (P=0.768), weight (P=0.685), and gender (P=1.00) using an unpaired Student t test and Chi-square tests [ Table 1] . The control group wasadequately matched to the injured group. Contralateral ACL maximum diameter (near tibial insertion site) for ACL-injured subjects was significantly less than that for non-injured matched control subjects (0.62 ± 0.07 vs 0.81 ± 0.06 cm; P<0.0001). Stepwise regression analysis showed that body weight was a significant predictor (R=0.357; P=0.016),...

Ultrasound is useful in measuring diameter of normal ACL and it can be an ideal screening tool in detecting aspiring athletes at increased risk of ACL injury. Smaller ACL diameter predisposes toACL injury. ACL diameter is significantly proportional to body weight and not significantly associated to height, gender, and age. Strong agreement between radiologists in measuring ACL diameter in cases and matched controls by ultrasound and by MRI. Practical implications of study findings Screening of athletes to identify potential risk factors predisposing to ACL injury...

Parag Suresh Mahajan, MD mdfrcr (at) gmail.com Department of Clinical Imaging, Hamad Medical Corporation, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar Prem Chandra, PhD Medical Research Center, Hamad Medical Corporation, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar Vidya Chander Negi, MD Department of Clinical Imaging, Hamad Medical Corporation, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar Abhilash Pulincherry Jayaram, MD Department of Clinical Imaging, Hamad Medical Corporation, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar Sheik Akbar Hussein, MD, DNB, FRCR Department of Clinical Imaging, Hamad Medical Corporation, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar

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