A Meta‐analysis of the Incidence of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tears as a Function of Gender, Sport, and a Knee Injury–Reduction Regimen

A PubMed literature search was done to identify all studies dealing with ACL tear incidence. Bibliographic cross-referencing was done to identify additional articles. Meta-analytic principles were applied to generate ACL incidences as a function of gender, sport, and prior injury-reduction training.

Female-male ACL tear incidences ratios were as follows: basketball, 3.5; soccer, 2.67; lacrosse, 1.18; and Alpine skiing, 1.0. The collegiate soccer tear rate was 0.32 for female subjects and 0.12 for male subjects. For basketball, the rates were 0.29 and 0.08, respectively. The rate for recreational Alpine skiers was 0.63, and that for experts was 0.03, with no gender variance. The two volleyball studies had no ACL tears. Training reduced the ACL tear incidence in soccer by 0.24 but did not reduce it at all in basketball.