ACL reconstruction in 14 year old

[marco1]

Hi All - hope someone can give me some advice here. My son ruptured his ACl just over 2 years ago and had some surgery to remove what was left of the ligament and then some physio. He has done pretty well and managed to play cricket and badminton with a knee brace. However, he is now 14 and I believe the time has come to have a reconstruction as he wants to do more walking for Duke of Edinburgh and he finds it diffucult walking down hill - it starts to hurt quite quickly. Also from what I have read it would seem to be best not to leave it too long.

The surgeon we are seeing has done many of these but I have no real idea of how good he is although he does all the footballers up here in the north east so I am assuming he is good.

Some questions - who is the best for ACl reconstruction in the UK? What can we expect in terms of sporting activity from this operation; wil my son be able to snowboard again (maybe with a low profile brace). Hope you understand my concern as I would hate to do something that might make things worse. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Mark.

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[msk101]

surgeons here in Aus have started operating with some ACLs in teenagers although the general concensus where i am located is to hold off as long as possible unless it's going to compromise the child's chance at elite/olympic level sports due to the skeleton not being fully fused. While surgical techniques are always improving there is still some risk of disruption to the epiphyseal plates of the growing leg and so you probably want to find a surgeon who has operated on skeletally immature teens before and see what their outcomes are like. An ACL reconstruction in the long term would be beneficial but check with a good surgeon about your son's long term development and growth and risk factors.