EVIDENCE-BASED BEST-PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR PREVENTING ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT INJURIES IN YOUNG FEMALE ATHLETES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is the most common season-ending injury seen in sports, with surgical reconstruction being the standard of care for the vast majority of athletes with goals of returning to sport. It is estimated that one ACL injury costs $38,000 USD, thus representing a significant economic burden to society. This burden falls largely on female athletes, as females are approximately 3 times more likely to injure their ACLs than their male counterparts.

Injury prevention has become a popular topic in recent years with a large focus specifically on ACL injuries. The purpose of this article was to evaluate the effectiveness of the specific components commonly seen in ACL injury prevention programs for females, with the goal of creating best practice guidelines.

METHODS

This paper was a meta-analysis with the following 5 inclusion criteria: 1) prospective controlled trial study design, (2) included females, (3) a neuromuscular training (NMT) intervention aimed at reducing ACL injury incidence, (4) a comparison of groups, and (5) frequency of ACL injuries were reported. The primary outcome of interest was ACL injury odds ratio. 18 studies were included in the analyses.

RESULTS

The results indicate that NMT programs are an effective intervention to reduce ACL injury. Overall, NMT has the potential to reduce injury prevalence from in 1 in 54 females to 1 in 111. The mean cumulative training volume found to

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