2013 COA Annual Meeting: A Detailed Prospective and Blinded Analysis of Complications/Adverse Events in Patients Having ACL reconstruction

330 patients were randomized to undergo anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction with a patellar tendon (PT), quadruple-stranded hamstring (HT), or double-bundle hamstring (DB) autograft, to compare incidence of post-operative adverse effects between surgical methods. Following assessments over a 2 year period, results indicated that 13% of patients required repeat surgery. The percentages of patients requiring repeat surgery were 8.2%, 17.3% and 14.5% in the PT, HT and DB procedures respectively. Patients with HT and DB autografts experienced more hamstring injuries compared to the PT group. However, the PT group had a higher incidence of kneeling pain, compared to the other two groups.