ACL Injuries In Female Athletes

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More women and girls are playing sports than ever before. The spectacular performance of women in the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics, along with the increase in the popularity of women's professional sports, have had a profound influence on little girls. "Be like Mike" has given way to "Be like Mia!"

The speed, power, and intensity displayed by female athletes have dramatically increased over the past decade. Such more aggressive style of play has led, predictably, to an increase in musculoskeletal injuries. One of the more common is a sprain or rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

What the ACL does

The ACL is one of four main ligaments inside the knee, running from the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia). It keeps the tibia from sliding forward on the knee and stabilizes the knee when it rotates or twists. Straight-ahead sports like jogging, swimming, and biking place little stress on the ACL. It is those that involve cutting, planting and changing direction, like soccer and basketball, in which the ACL plays a vital role, and where athletes, particularly female, are at greatest risk of ACL injury.

Women suffer more ACL injuries

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, soccer players sustained more than 81,600 knee injuries in 1998, with players suffering an additional 225,800 knee injuries in basketball.

A 1995 article in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that NCAA women's basketball players were four times more likely to tear their ACLs than their male counterparts. The same study found that women suffered twice as many ACL injuries in NCAA soccer as men.

In addition to the significant pain and suffering experienced by these female athletes, the financial cost is enormous. One study found that it cost $44 million to reconstruct and rehabilitate the 2,200 ACL injuries suffered by female collegiate athletes each year.

No Easy Explanation

Some ACL injuries are easy to explain because they occur as a result of a direct blow to the knee from the side or rear which tears the ACL. But most ACL injuries are not the result of contact. Women may be more prone to these kinds of ACL injuries because they run and cut sharply in a more erect posture than men, and bend their knees less when landing from a jump.

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Article Updated: August 25, 2007

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