We know that women are significantly more susceptible to ACL injuries than men, but a surprising new study suggests that men who undergo surgery to reconstruct their ACLs may be at a greater risk than women of developing a hole in their knee cartilage, which in turn increases the risk of osteoarthtitis.

A team of researchers from Akerhus University Hospital in Lorenskog, Norway, studied a pool of about 15,800 Norwegian and Swedish patients aged 8 to 69 who underwent primary ACL reconstruction surgery between 2005 and 2008 to see if the rate of developing knee cartilage lesions differed based on gender. Overall, 1,012, or 6.4%, of the patients developed full-thickness lesions. The rate of lesion development was 7% among male patients vs. 5.6% among women.

"The goal of this type of research is to continually identify risk factors for injury," says lead author Jan Harald Roetterud, MD, who presented the findings that the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's annual meeting in San Diego last week. "With this information we will hopefully be able to improve prevention and treatment, as well as provide new guidelines for an athlete's return to sports."

Orthopedic surgeon C. David Geier, MD, director of the Medical University of South Carolina Sports Medicine Program, says it's important that patients of both genders who suffer ACL injuries seek reconstructive surgery as soon as possible. "Active people who are worried about doing more harm to their knee might consider surgery early after the injury, and not wait months or years."

Irene Tsikitas