Ope­ra­tion for a torn an­te­rior cru­ciate ligament?

I (38) tore my an­te­rior cru­ciate li­ga­ment in my left knee while ski­ing. Is sur­gery re­ally bet­ter, as I have been advised?

The choice of the­rapy is in­di­vi­dual and de­pends, among other things, on the ext­ent and se­ve­rity of the in­jury as well as the life­style. A com­plete tear of the an­te­rior cru­ciate li­ga­ment of­ten re­sults in in­sta­bi­lity of the af­fec­ted knee joint and usually re­qui­res sur­gi­cal re­pair in peo­ple who are ac­tive in sports. In con­trast, I usually ad­vise against pre­ma­ture sur­gery for pa­ti­ents who do not put a lot of strain on their knee in ever­y­day life and do not have a fee­ling of in­sta­bi­lity. If there are no fur­ther li­ga­ment in­ju­ries, bony avul­si­ons and an un­in­ju­red me­nis­cus on the MRI, the af­fec­ted knee will be re­li­e­ved with a sta­bi­li­zing knee or­tho­sis in the first few weeks and tar­ge­ted phy­sio­the­rapy will be in­itia­ted to streng­then the thigh muscles.

If the knee joint re­mains si­gni­fi­cantly unsta­ble de­spite all con­ser­va­tive the­rapy me­a­su­res, an ope­ra­tive re­con­s­truc­tion of the an­te­rior cru­ciate li­ga­ment may be­come ne­ces­sary. The pro­ce­dure is then per­for­med as stan­dard ar­thro­sco­pi­cally, i.e. using mi­ni­mally in­va­sive key­hole sur­gery, and ana­to­mic­ally accurately.