Health-related quality of life after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Purpose Recently the patients’ own evaluation has become an important complement to post-operative clinical assessments. For many patients, there is a change in life situation after an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACL), which may affect the health-related quality of life in many ways. The aims of the study were to evaluate the results in terms of health-related quality of life 2–7 years after an ACL reconstruction and to compare the results with a gender- and age-matched control group. Furthermore, to compare the results for males and females using either the bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft (BPTB) or hamstring tendon autograft (HT). Methods The SF-36 questionnaire was send by mail to 793 consecutive patients after an ACL reconstruction. Five hundred and forty-four (69%) patients returned the questionnaires leaving 419 patients (161 female, 258 male) who were analysed and matched to a Swedish control group (n = 2,410). Results The patient group obtained significantly higher scores for General Health (GH), Social Function (SF), Role Emotional (RE) and Mental Health (MH). The control group obtained significantly higher scores for Physical Function (PF) compared with the total ACL group and with the BPTB and HS subgroups. There were no significant differences between males and females. Conclusion After ACL reconstruction, the patients reported good health-related quality of life in comparison with a matched sample of the general population. To incorporate non-disease-specific health assessment measures are important to further refine the disease-specific outcome measurements to evaluate the effect of the treatments and provide cost-effective treatment algorithms