Recognizing Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tears in Female Athletes: What Every Primary Care Practitioner Should Know

Purpose: Women have a much higher rate of anterior cruciate ligament injury than men. Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are very expensive as well as physically and emotionally debilitating. Understanding why anterior cruciate ligament injuries are more prevalent in women as compared to men is crucial and addressing these issues to possibly prevent their high occurrence is important. Review of Literature: Hormonal differences, structural differences, musculature differences, and mechanical differences between men and women leave women more susceptible to anterior cruciate ligament injury. While there are many factors contributing to the higher rate of anterior cruciate ligament injury in women versus men, newer research has been devoted to addressing the issues that can be corrected and the discrepancies that can be decreased. Investigators are now taking the results from such research and applying them to women to decrease the occurrence of anterior cruciate ligament injury among this group. Results: Promising outcomes have occurred in neuromuscular and proprioceptive training programs designed to help women strengthen and train the muscles around their knee thus leading to better stabilization and therefore decreasing the incidence of anterior cruciate ligament injury. Conclusion: Future research should be devoted to finding all of the possible factors of the increased incidence of anterior cruciate ligament injury in women and all potential avenues for preventing these injuries should be studied.