Immediate Versus Optional Delayed Surgical Repair for Treatment of Acute ACL Injuries
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Rehabilitation, Optional delayed anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, Immediate anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: ACL Injury. Basic parameters: from 16 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Belgium
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Comparison of Immediate Versus Optional Delayed Surgical Repair for Treatment of Acute Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Through a Parallel, Multicentric, Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial
Overview
Currently, most patients with an anterior cruciate ligament injury undergo surgery. There is a general belief that surgical reconstruction is necessary to safely return to sports and to prevent early knee osteoarthritis or additional meniscus injuries. But there is insufficient scientific evidence to support this belief. Moreover, several studies show that surgical reconstruction of the cruciate ligament does not guarantee successful return to sports or the prevention of osteoarthritis and secondary meniscus injuries. Therefore, immediate surgery after an anterior cruciate ligament injury is questioned. So far, only two RCTs (KANON study and COMPARE study) have assessed this, and they could not show that immediate reconstruction is an added value (in terms of symptoms, knee function, activity level, osteoarthritis or additional meniscal injuries) compared to a conservative approach consisting of rehabilitation and late surgery for persistent knee instability. Therefore, this additional multicenter RCT, aims to 1) verify these results and 2) to identify predictors that predict which patients in the conservative group will not require late surgery. This has not been investigated to date. It is suspected that factors such as symptoms, strength, findings on the MRI scan and psychological factors may play a role in whether or not a patient will be able to successfully rehabilitate without surgical repair. This information is invaluable to physicians because it allows them to decide which treatment is best for the patient.
Interventions
- Other Rehabilitation
All patients complete rehabilitation under supervision of their own physiotherapist. The investigators will provide some guidelines and criteria, but it is the physiotherapist's choice how to implement these guidelines in clinical practice. - Procedure Optional delayed anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction
If a patient complains about persistent symptomatic instability of the knee or the inability to progress in rehabilitation, delayed surgery can be considered. ACL insufficiency induced instability in combination with a positive pivot shift and an additional MRI are needed to confirm the cause of instability. This surgery will not be performed within the first 12 weeks after the ACL injury. - Procedure Immediate anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction
No guidelines on type of ACL reconstruction will be imposed to keep the trial pragmatic. The decision of graft type and surgery technique is a clinical decision made by the orthopaedic surgeons of the participating centra. This surgery will be performed within 12 weeks after the ACL injury.
Primary outcome measures
- Clinical effectiveness (long-term) [Time frame: 12 months post-injury]
- Clinical effectiveness (short-term) [Time frame: 7 months post-injury]
Secondary outcome measures (1)
- Prediction analysis to identify patient-specific factors that predict whether (or not) a patient will require delayed surgery [Time frame: 36 months post-injury]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Rotational trauma to a knee that had no previous serious injury and for which medical advice was sought within 4 weeks after the injury.
- Medical diagnosis of ACL insufficiency including MRI (both partial and complete ruptures)
- Minimum of 16 years
Exclusion criteria
- Participant has a history of a previous ACL injury or knee surgery to the index knee
- Indication for acute surgery because of related injuries to the knee
- Female who is pregnant or plans to become pregnant in the first 4 months of the trial. Since MRI assessment cannot be performed.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Single blind
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
Belgium · 1 center
- UZ Leuven — Leuven
Publications
- Smeets A, Ghafelzadeh Ahwaz F, Bogaerts S, Berger P, Peers K. Comparison of immediate versus optional delayed surgical repair for treatment of acute anterior cruciate ligament injury through a parallel, multicentric, pragmatic randomized controlled trial - IODA trial. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2024 Jan 18;16(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s13102-024-00816-6. PMID 38238809
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05747079 · S67021