Purpose: To determine if patients who underwent ACL repair experienced less short-term postoperative pain versus patients who underwent ACL reconstruction.
Methods: Electronic charts were retrospectively reviewed of patients who underwent ACL surgery from November 2014 through April 2019 by a single surgeon. Patients were divided into two groups based on whether they underwent ACL repair or ACL reconstruction. A two-tailed equal variance t-test was used to evaluate visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores at the first postoperative visit. A chi-squared test of independence was used to evaluate narcotic prescription refills at the first postoperative visit.
Results: 36 ACL repair patients and 71 ACL reconstruction patients were included. The mean visual analog scale (VAS) pain score at the first postoperative visit (12.9 ± 3.7 days post-op) for ACL repair patients (2.81 ± 1.79) was significantly lower (p = .004) compared to ACL reconstruction patients (4.07 ± 2.26). The number of narcotic prescription refills at the first postoperative visit was significantly lower (p = .027, ARR = 21.4%, NNT = 4.67) in the ACL repair group (7 of 36, 19.4%) compared to the ACL reconstruction group (29 of 71, 40.8%).
Conclusion: Patients who underwent ACL repair experienced less short-term postoperative pain and were prescribed fewer narcotics compared to patients who underwent ACL reconstruction.
Keywords: ACL; ACL repair; Anterior cruciate ligament; Internal bracing; Narcotic pain medication; Postoperative pain.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag France SAS part of Springer Nature.