Examining prior injury relative to anterior cruciate ligament tears in National Basketball Association players.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the prior injury patterns in relationship to the subsequent new injuries of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears within the National Basketball Association (NBA). A systematic search was performed of two publicly available online sources to aggregate the injury history of athletes who sustained anterior cruciate ligament tears within the National Basketball Association. To examine previous injury trends by mechanism of injury, each injury was then further sub-classified into three previously identified mechanisms: 1) single leg casting; 2) bilateral pro-hop; 3) single-leg landing after contact. One hundred and twenty-five occurrences of ACL injuries were reviewed between 1981 and 2023. For each ACL injury, the involved player's injury history was recorded including the injury report date, location, type/categorization, most recent game played, and days missed due to injury. Thirty-four ACL injuries were preceded by a time-loss injury (at least 1 game missed) within 90 days, including 14 within 30 days. Previous knee and/or ankle injuries occurred within one-year of 40% of the ACL tears. Understanding the link between previous minor and moderate injury and subsequent major injury will help practitioners better identify and stratify risk when considering return to competition.