Description
Title : Military Service Members vs Civilians: A Retrospective Study of Preoperative Lysholm Score and Their Related Issues in Patients Underwent Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstructions
Objectives : Little was known about factors affecting preoperative Lysholm score (LS) in patients underwent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR), especially in comparing between military officers and civilians. This study was to determine factors correlated to preoperative LS both military service members and civilians under homogeneous care of single attending surgeon. In addition, we investigated the effects of preoperative LS on postoperative LS.
Methods : We collected 92 patients underwent ACLR performed by single knee arthroscopist of naval medical center. Patients were divided with preoperative LS into poor (< 60) group (n=21) and acceptable (>/= 60) group (n=71). General demographic data and arthroscopic findings were recorded and compared between two groups of populations.
Results : The mean age was 29.7 years and the mean body mass index was 25.37. Thirty-nine patients (42.3%) were military officers. There was no significant difference in preoperative LS between civilians and military service members. Associated meniscal injury was not significant correlate to preoperative LS (p-value > 0.05), and also no difference between two population groups. We found that poor preoperative LS group exhibited a lower postoperative LS (79.09+/-17.91) than acceptable preoperative LS group (90.06+/-9.37) at 6 months with significant difference (p-value = 0.0017). Older age negatively affected poorer preoperative LS although it was no significant difference (Pearson’s correlation coefficient -0.25, p-value = 0.27).
Conclusions : Our study might be an earlier work to propose that patients with poor preoperative LS significantly demonstrated poorer postoperative outcomes than patients with acceptable preoperative LS. To be military service member and also associated meniscal injury did not correlate with poor preoperative LS. We recommend paying comprehensive attention both military and civilian patients before surgery especially in poor preoperative LS and older patients.