ArticleSports medicine - open2025
Identification of characteristics of patients who choose operative versus non-operative management after ACL injury: a latent class analysis.
Article in Sports medicine - open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Patient-Reported Knee Function and Return-to-Sport Rates After Nonsurgical and Surgical Treatment of an Acute Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury: Results From the NACOX Prospective Cohort Study.The American journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAfter an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture, characteristics of patients that may benefit from having ACL reconstruction (ACLR) versus undergoing non-surgical treatment are still largely not known. Identifying patient subgroups may help clinicians and researchers better understand the unique needs of individuals within common clinical profiles. The primary aim of this study was to identify subgroups of patients with an ACL injury, based on patient characteristics, psychological and social factors, and the extent of the initial injury, and to evaluate subgroup characteristics based on undergoing ACLR versus non-surgical management. The secondary aim was to compare subgroups on their knee function and return to sports outcomes.
resultsA total of 275 participants (age 15-40, 48% male) with an acute ACL injury treated with usual care, either ACLR or not, from the Natural Corollaries and Recovery after ACL injury (NACOX) multicenter longitudinal cohort study were included. At two years after injury, 169 (62%) had undergone ACLR. The analysis uncovered 3 latent classes (entropy = 0.91, Akaike's information criterion (AIC) = 12125.2, Bayesian information criteria (BIC) = 12302.4, sample size adjusted BIC = 12147.0, Vuong-Lo-Mendell-Rubin (VLMR) likelihood ratio test=-6085.8, VLMR p-value = 0.5). Participants in Class 2 (n = 155) had 1.8 times (hazards ratio (HR):1.814, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.293-2.545, p < 0.001) higher probability for having an ACLR compared to Class 3 (n = 98). There were no statistically significant differences in patient reported knee function (International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score) at one- or two-years follow-up between the classes. A higher proportion of participants in Class 3 returned to same or higher activity level compared to Class 1 (n = 22) and 2.
conclusionsThe three distinct subgroups of patients after ACL rupture differed in probability to undergo ACLR and return to activity after injury at one and two years after injury. There was no difference between subgroups in patient-reported knee function at one or two years after injury. Clinicians should consider the differentiating characteristics between subgroups along with the goals of their patients when engaging in shared decision-making about surgical or nonsurgical management.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.