The study by Dunn et al., "Baseline Predictors of Health-Related Quality of Life after Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A longitudinal analysis of a multicenter cohort at two and six years," evaluates patient factors that are predictive of outcomes following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. The current review critically analyzes the findings of this study in light of the current body of literature on the subject and assesses its contribution to the development of evidence-based guidelines. The authors' primary endpoint, the Short Form-36 (SF-36), is used ubiquitously in health care research and allows their results to be compared across different disease states and studies. Despite its widespread use, the SF-36 has been shown to be sensitive to outcomes following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. The authors' use of generic health-related quality of life outcome as a primary endpoint represents an important contribution to the field, and their findings allow for improved preoperative counseling by identifying baseline patient factors that predict outcomes following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Furthermore, by deriving utilities from SF-36 scores, the authors are able to assess the value of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction as compared to other medical and surgical procedures.
Keywords: ACL reconstruction; Multicenter Orthopaedic Outcomes Network (MOON); SF-36; quality of life.