Epidemiology of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Surgery in Italy: A 15-Year Nationwide Registry Study

Abstract

There remains little information on the epidemiology of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACL-R), therefore, we performed an epidemiological evaluation on the ACL-R procedures performed in Italy from 2001 to 2015 to highlight potential disparities in access to healthcare. The National Hospital Discharge records (SDO) maintained at the Italian Ministry of Health were analyzed from 2001 to 2015; 248,234 ACL-Rs were performed in Italy over the 15-year study period in the adult population (starting from 15 years old), and the incidence rate per year in 100,000 persons ranged from 21.70 to 33.60 over the study period. The overall male/female ratio was 4.54. The length of hospitalization ranged from four days in 2001 to two days in 2015. Italy is historically divided into north, center, and south regions, and more than half of ACL-R surgery was performed in the north (67.2%); 95.2% of ACL-Rs were underwent in public institutions. The predicted model projected a slight growth in the number of ACL-Rs in the next 10 years (2016–2025). The number of ACL-R procedures increased in the adult population from 2001 to 2015. The ACL-R procedures were concentrated in the north of Italy, suggesting that efforts on regionalization of ACL-Rs should turn toward improving quality in hospitals in the south of Italy.