Background:

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) takes part in the knee's articular cinematic regulation, which is why its rupture should be repaired as soon as possible. The surgical treatment is targeted to substitute the ruptured ACL with a graft that recreates the anatomical and biomechanical functions. Nevertheless, there are different factors that may produce a second rupture.

Objective:

To determine the risk factors and frequency of failure in the ACL reconstruction.

Material and methods:

Retrospective study evaluating the frequency and etiology of the failure in the ACL reconstruction in an adult population during a three-year period. Risk factors such as age, gender, trauma background, previous joint injuries, type of the graft previously used, lapse between surgeries, lapse between rupture and surgery and other comorbidities were analyzed.

Results:

We obtained 34 patients with ACL reconstruction failure and 111 with native ACL rupture (145 patients in total). In the ACL reconstruction failure group, 31 were males with an average age of 33 years, produced by a traumatic mechanism (85.2%) and with other associated injuries (41%).

Conclusions:

We found a significant statistical association for graft failure with male patients, traumatic mechanism, isolated cartilage lesions or combined articular injuries.