Good long‐term patients reported outcomes, return‐to‐work and return‐to‐sport rate and survivorship after posterior cruciate ligament (PCL)‐based multiligament knee injuries (MLKI) with posteromedial corner tears as significant risk factor for failure

Abstract

AbstractPurposeTo assess the survival rate and associated risk factors of a wide cohort of patient’s underwent surgical treatment for posterior cruciate ligament (PCL)‐based multiligament knee injury (MLKI) at long‐term follow‐up and to investigate the long‐term patient’s reported outcomes (PROMS) and functional activity.MethodsAll cases of PCL‐based MLKI performed at one single sport‐medicine institution were extracted and patient’s with a minimum 2 years of follow‐up included. VAS, Lysholm, KOOS, Tegner Activity level scores, the incidence and time of return to sport (RTS) and return to work (RTW) were collected before, after surgery and at final follow‐up. A multivariate logistic regression was performed to investigate the outcomes associated with the patient’s acceptable symptoms state (PASS) for each sub‐score of the KOOS. The Kaplan–Meier method with surgical failure (re‐operation to one of the reconstructed ligaments) as endpoint was used to perform the survivorship analysis for the entire cohort.ResultsForty‐two patients were included and evaluated at an average of 10 years. All PROMS significantly improved from pre‐ to post‐surgery (range ηp2 0.21–0.43, p < 0.05) except for the Tegner score which significantly improved from pre‐surgery and to final follow‐up (ηp2 = 0.67, p < 0.001). RTW was achieved in the 95.2% after 2.4 ± 1.9 months. RTS was achieved in 78.6% after 6.7 ± 5.0 months. The higher number of surgeries were the significant negative predictors of PASS for the KOOS sub‐scales Sport (p = 0.040) and Quality of Life (p = 0.046), while the presence of meniscal lesions was a significant negative predictor of PASS only for the KOOS sub‐scale of Sport (p = 0.003). Six patients (14.3%) underwent reoperation and were considered as surgical failures. The global survivorship was 95.2%, 92.6%, 87.1%, and 74.7% at 2, 5, 12, and 15 years, respectively. The survivorship in patient undergoing PMC reconstruction surgery was significantly lower (p = 0.004; HR 7.1) compared to patients without a PMC lesion.ConclusionGood‐to‐excellent PROMS could be obtained and maintained at long‐term follow‐up after surgery, with the higher number of surgeries and meniscal lesions as significant negative predictors of the PASS. Moreover, the presence of a PMC lesion significantly increases the risk of the PCL reconstruction failure.Level of evidenceIII.