Anterior cruciate ligament tears: conservative or surgical treatment?

Excerpt

We thank Maffulli et al. [5] for their comments that reinforce our point of view that one should not systematically and quickly propose surgical treatment to anyone who is a recent victim of an accident causing rupture to the anterior cruciate ligament. This attitude would be defensible if surgery was able to reconstitute the anatomy and physiology of a normal knee, which is not yet the case at present. This is why, as described by Maffulli et al. [5], the sole aim of surgical reconstruction of which the efficacy has been demonstrated is to eliminate instability. It is evident, as we teach our students, that laxity does not necessarily lead to instability and that instability is not always due to laxity. This is the reason why rehabilitation exercises prove effective to treat instability as well demonstrated by different authors [1‐4, 6]. …