Prolonged Preoperative Rehabilitation in ACL Rupture.

NCT ID: NCT04888052

Last Updated: 2025-12-26

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 6 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2021-10-19
• Study Completion Date: 2022-12-31

Brief Summary

Rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament is a serious and common injury. In young athletes, surgical reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament by autograft with hamstrings or patellar ligament is widely used.

Despite relatively standardized medical, surgical, and paramedical management, the results after ACL ligamentoplasty are not entirely satisfactory in term of return to sport. Recovery of the quadriceps strength is recognized as one of the decision-making criteria allowing the return to sport; however, significant muscle deficits are frequent at the time of return to sport.

If the postoperative management is well codified, focused on muscle strengthening and neuromuscular retraining, some studies have addressed the value of preoperative rehabilitation, and recommend a good preoperative muscular recovery of knee extensors and flexors, to obtain better postoperative results at the stage of the return to sports.

These results suggest that preoperative quadriceps strength should be considered as a predictor of the athletes' ability to return to sport activities.

It is estimated that around 10 to 30% of patients with preoperative deficits and could benefit from additional rehabilitation.

It can then be assumed that if the preoperative deficit is smaller, the postoperative deficit will also be smaller. This is the challenge of preoperative rehabilitation.

There are a few studies on preoperative rehabilitation which allow a gain in strength of knee extensors and flexors. However, the rehabilitation protocols applied to patients highly varied and there is no consensus on one protocol. The potential improvement is in the range of 10 to 20%.

The hypothesis of the study is that an optimal recovery of the strength of the preoperative knee extensors and flexors would reduce the postoperative deficit, thus improving the return to sport.

In the absence of reliable information on the frequency of muscle weakness in preoperative patients, we will conduct a preliminary study to obtain these data as well as the potential gain in strength with our preoperative rehabilitation protocol.

Conditions

Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries

Keywords

Rehabilitation; preoperative; strength; isokinetic; anterior cruciate ligament

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Group 1

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Acute ACL injury

Intervention Type: DEVICE

Quantification of the preoperative deficits, by an isokinetic dynamometer, in order to adapt the care management of patients found with a muscle deficiency. Patients with preoperative knee extensor deficits \> 15% will benefit from an additional preoperative rehabilitation protocol (8 weeks).

Interventions

Acute ACL injury

Quantification of the preoperative deficits, by an isokinetic dynamometer, in order to adapt the care management of patients found with a muscle deficiency. Patients with preoperative knee extensor deficits \> 15% will benefit from an additional preoperative rehabilitation protocol (8 weeks).

Intervention Type: DEVICE

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Acute ACL injury (< 4 weeks) before surgical treatment
• Patient given written consent to participate in the study,
• Patient able to understand the protocol and willing to comply with its rules.
• Social security affiliated

Exclusion Criteria

• Age < 18 years ou > 45 years,
• ACL rupture associated with fracture or complex meniscal tear or lesion to the lateral collateral ligament or posterior cruciate ligament
• History of ligament surgery on the affected and non-affected knee.
• fracture
• Isokinetic contraindications : cardiorespiratory, metabolic, neurological, cancer or hematological pathology contraindicating physical activity, long term steroid use (> 3 months), pregnancy, skin problems under load cell, osteoporosis, anticoagulants
• Patient under the protection of adults
• Informed consent not obtained

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 45 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

University Hospital, Lille

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

André Thevenon, MD,PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University Hospital, Lille

Locations

Hop Swynghedauw

Lille, , France

Countries

France

Other Identifiers

2021-A00598-33

Identifier Type: OTHER

Identifier Source: secondary_id

2020_71

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id