Kayla Scott

Shelbourne, Donald K., & Gray, Tinker., (2000). Results of Anterior Cruciate Ligament

Reconstruction Based on Meniscus and Articular Cartilage Status at the Time of Surgery.

The American Journal of Sports Medicine ​, 28(4), 446-452. Retrieved from:

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.975.5027&rep=rep1&type=pdf

In this article, the effects of meniscal problems and unhealthy cartilage measurements at

the time of an ACL reconstruction were examined based off of patients who have already had

ACL surgery 5 to 15 years ago. It was found through evaluation using the KT 1000 test and other

tests from the International Knee Documentation Committee that patients who still had both

menisci present after surgery scored significantly higher (by almost 20 percent) than patients

who had meniscus removed due to tears and unhealthy cartilage from waiting too long to do the

surgery. This allowed a conclusion to be made that ACL surgery is most successful with healthy

meniscus and cartilage, found in patients who have the surgery in the correct time frame.

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.

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

surgeon and orthopedic sports doctor in Indiana and has a Medical Degree along with a

fellowship and is American Board of Orthopedic Surgery certified. Shelbourne has published a

multitude of other academic journals, and even has his own practice in Indiana offering a very

specific kind of patellar graft for knee surgery. He can easily be reached at​ ​317-924-8636, found

by a simple google search. This article has deep but broad coverage, making sure to explain
methods, patients, results, and why the results were happening. 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 17 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

surgeons tell patients to get the surgery done within 4 weeks of the ACL injury to reduce any

further damage to the knee, something that was being explored in this experiment along with

cartilage damage and decisions regarding the meniscus during surgery. 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 Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery​ ​ ​has

the same results for a different test, showing that waiting more than 12 months to have ACL

reconstruction cause a multitude of problems including an increase in meniscal tears and range of

motion issues later after the surgery. Apart from this separate article, there are several listed

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

accuracy and prior research done to make the paper 100% accurate. 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, how

long to wait to get a surgery and why, and how that will help in the long run.