Patients submitted to re-revision ACL reconstruction present more knee laxity, more complications, and a higher failure rate than patients submitted to the first revision ACL reconstruction

Background: Few comparative studies have evaluated patients who underwent two revision anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) and patients who underwent one revision ACLR, and many of them have a short postoperative follow-up and a relatively small number of patients. The objective of this study is to evaluate the functional results, complications, and failure rates of patients who underwent one revision ACLR and patients who underwent two revision ACLRs.

Methods: This is a retrospective study comparing patients who underwent one revision ACLR (Group 1) with patients who underwent a re-revision ACLR (Group 2). Baseline demographic variables, operative data and post-operative data were evaluated.

Results: Among the 266 patients included, 226 were from Group 1 and 40 from Group 2. Patients in Group 2 had greater rotatory laxity and were more often subjected to associated osteotomy at the time of revision surgery. Postoperatively, patients from Group 2 reported poorer subjective IKDC score and showed greater knee laxity measured with the KT-1000 arthrometer, although both probably not clinically relevant. The complication rate was high in both groups, with a higher incidence in Group 2. Reconstruction failures were also higher in Group 2 (20% vs. 8.8%, p = 0.03).

Conclusion: Patients from Group 2 underwent a higher rate of associated osteotomy procedures, present higher complication rates and a higher failure rate compared with patients from Group 1. However, the functional scores (Lysholm and IKDC score) and the physical examination (KT-1000 and pivot-shift) did not show clinically relevant differences between the groups.

Level of evidence: III, retrospective comparative therapeutic trial.