The Relationship between Posterior Tibial Slope and Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries

Abstract

Despite the identification of an increased posterior tibial slope as a possible risk factor for women, more research that combines the multifactorial nature of an ACL injury must be performed.

Is Noncontact ACL Injury Associated with the Posterior Tibial and Meniscal Slope?

“…We suppose that a greater MS reduces AP knee stability analogous to a resection or injury of the posterior meniscus. It is unclear whether an injury risk resulting from a greater PTS is modified by the MS. Two recent studies [20,47] link a greater PTS to noncontact ACL injury in women, who reportedly are at a greater risk for such injury than men [18]. These data suggest gender-specific assessments of the PTS and MS would be important.…”

“…A sample size of 54 individuals for both groups was calculated to detect a 1.5°difference with a power of 0.94 at an a-error of 0.05. The targeted primary outcome variable was set to 1.5°b ecause PTS differences reported in the literature range from 0.9°-3.4° [8,46,47]. The typical errors for interobserver and intraobserver variability related to the method used herein are 1.4°and 1.2°, respectively [23].…”

“…for the lateral plateau [46] or only for females [47]. Another study reported an association for the PTS in males but it was missing for the female's lateral PTS [21].…”

“…Some authors presumed that with greater translation greater ligament loading occurred and placed the ACL at greater risk with an increased PTS [13,17,44]. Thus, noncontact ACL injury was associated with a greater PTS, but published data are contradictory [8,17,35,41,42,44,46,47]. Although there was no ACL tension increase in a biomechanical study [17], computer model data [41,42] support a positive association between ACL tension and a greater PTS.…”

“…Although there was no ACL tension increase in a biomechanical study [17], computer model data [41,42] support a positive association between ACL tension and a greater PTS. There is incongruity between five clinical studies [8,21,35,46,47] that concluded a greater risk for noncontact ACL injury in patients with increased PTSs (Table 1). The relationship to injury either was stated only Each author certifies that he or she has no commercial associations (eg, consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article.…”