Kayla Scott

Church, S., & Keating, J. F., (2005). Reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament: Timing of

Surgery and the Incidence of Meniscal Tears and Degenerative Change. ​The Journal of

Bone and Joint Surgery​, (Br), 1639-1642. Retrieved from:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8951/6f2dbc66c680979b6f4dc09f7abec4cc87c6.pdf

In this study, the best timing to do an ACL surgery was observed by examining the

percentage of meniscal tears in patients who have had the reconstruction surgery. 183 patients

ranging from 16 to 40 years old, all who have already had ACL reconstruction surgery, were

placed into groups based on how long they waited to have the surgery after the initial tear. The

two groups included patients who had surgery 0-12 months after the tear, or more than 12

months after the tear. In those groups, they were examined by doctors and physical therapists to

come to a conclusion about what percentage of the groups had suffered another knee ligament

tear, the meniscus, based on the timing of the surgery. The results showed that the group who

had the reconstruction surgery 0-12 months after the tear had significantly less meniscal tears.

This could be due to a number of factors including less degeneration of thee knee ligaments,

increased amount of healthy cartilage post surgery, and the amount of exercise a patient got

(faster surgery means faster recovery and quicker to exercise more to gain strength).

This article has extreme authority, coverage, and accuracy along with many other things.

Being in an academic journal, the article is vetted for the reader by professional after

professional, but beyond that the authors are two experts in the field they are studying. Keating,

the main author and scientist performing the study, is a highly regarded orthopedic surgeon and

orthopedic trauma surgeon in france and has a FRCS (Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of
Surgeons) degree, which is similar to a doctoral degree from Harvard in the US. He can easily be

reached at ​John.Keating@ed.ac.uk​, displayed in the margin in the article. This article has deep

but broad coverage,making sure to explain methods, patients, results, and why the results were to

happen. The author is not shy when explaining dropouts, potential altering factors in the study,

and why the results may or may not have occured, making it reliable, unbiased, and medically

professional. Although the article is from 13 years ago, not meeting the expected medical article

time requirement, it is still extremely reliable because it explains things still being used and

researched today. For example, we know that ACL surgeries are to happen immediately after the

tear for best results, and this study explains why that is so and the consequences if that protocol

is not followed, helping people not only inside the medical field making their decision on when

to do the surgery, but common people debating on whether to do the surgery now or later. The

article can also be corroborated with many others, shown by listing many articles at the end of

the study for further research and resources. For example, a study done in ​the American Journal

of Sports Medicine ​has the same results for a different test, showing that waiting more than 12

months to have ACL reconstruction cause a multitude of problem including decreased meniscus

lateral and press mobility and function. Apart from this separate article, all the ones listed

underneath the main article corroborate the study and its findings as well, once again proving ats

accuracy. Overall, the paper is written at a collegiate academic level, which does make it

sophisticated due to its common audience of students of medicine, but still relatively easy to

understand by the public, making it appealing to many audiences to convey its purpose to inform

many people about ACL reconstruction and meniscal tears.