Evaluation of the Muscle Strength of the Knee Joint and Sport Activities in the Knee Injured Patients after Operative Treatment.

Effect of Subcutaneous Tissue on Changes in Thigh Circumference Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction

“…For each patient, cross-sectional images of the thighs were obtained using an MRI scanner (Signa 1.5, Exel Art Toshiba Medical Systems, Japan) on the day before and 4 weeks after surgery, based on previous studies that found differences in thigh circumference between the injured and uninjured legs of patients with ACL injury to be greatest at 4 weeks after surgery [15,16]. Previous studies examined thigh circumference after a relatively long period of time following ACL reconstruction, i. e., 6 months, 1 year, and 3 years [5,6]; this, however, does not clarify the effect of the operation itself or in-hospital rehabilitation programs since various factors, such as activity levels and diet, could affect thigh circumference. Furthermore, morphological factors are greatly affected by daily activities and dietary behaviors.…”

“…Many studies have reported on the effectiveness of this method for estimating muscle CSA and determining muscle volume since circumference measurements correlate with muscle CSA in healthy persons [1][2][3][4]. Thigh circumference is also measured in actual clinical practice as a non-invasive and simple method to estimate muscle volume following ACL reconstruction [5,6]. Previous studies using magnetic resonance images (MRI) have shown significant decreases in the CSA and volume of affected thigh muscles in patients with ACL injury after reconstruction, and that these differences are significantly correlated with muscle weakness [7][8][9][10].…”

“…Therefore, clarifying the relationship between thigh circumference and muscles and subcutaneous fat CSAs following ACL reconstruction is of particular importance. Some studies have examined the relationship between thigh circumference and muscle function after a relatively long period of time following ACL reconstruction (i. e., 6 months and 1 and 3 years) [5,6,13,14]. However, to our knowledge, no study has examined the relationship between thigh circumference and subcutaneous fat CSA, or CSAs of muscles around knee joints which are obtained by MR imaging system, relatively shortly after ACL reconstruction.…”

“…Moreover, discrepancies in thigh circumference between the uninjured and injured legs of patients with prior ACL injury have been shown to be greatest at 4 weeks following reconstruction [15,16]. Measuring thigh circumference at 4 weeks after ACL reconstruction, which is shorter compared to previous studies [5,6,13,14], would therefore be more important in terms of evaluating the degree of muscle atrophy in the patients' thighs.…”