Sports Medicine & March Madness With Dr. Frank Noyes, Cincinnati SportsMedicine


CINCINNATI, OH--(Marketwire - March 17, 2009) - As we head into NCAA tournament time for both men's and women's basketball teams, the fate of many of these teams, especially on the women's side, depends on how healthy their players are. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, women basketball players injure their ACLs four to six times as often as males. And nearly 60 percent of women's ACL tears come when landing from a jump. Dr. Frank Noyes, a world-renowned expert in ACL injuries, and the experts at Cincinnati SportsMedicine & Orthopaedic Center have developed a scientific training program, called Sportsmetrics, that is used by thousands of high schools and physical trainers around the country and has been shown to dramatically reduce the incidence of ACL injuries in young female athletes.

A new study from the Cincinnati SportsMedicine and Orthopaedic Center shows that a growing practice of using a double anterior cruciate ligament graft to repair ACL injuries is not necessarily superior to a single graft. The study is led by Dr. Noyes and results of the study were presented at the recent American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting in Las Vegas.

The study, which looked at anterior cruciate ligament or ACL function as well as single and double graft reconstructions, showed that there was not enough evidence to recommend the more complex double bundle ACL graft technique over a single graft. Instead, the precise location and attachment of the graft in the knee seems to be most important.

"When the ACL tears, it's like a mop end, and we can't repair it," said Dr. Noyes. "To that end, we put in a graft and take a tendon around the knee joint. Then using an arthroscope, we precisely place the new ligament into the knee joint; this allows the body to remodel a new strong ligament over several months."

Dr. Frank R. Noyes, President and Medical Director of Cincinnati Sportsmedicine and Orthopaedic Center, Cincinnati SportsMedicine Research and Education Foundation and the Noyes Knee Institute, is a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon and an internationally known expert on the diagnosis and treatment of knee problems. Dr. Noyes is a member of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

For more information, visit: www.sportsmetrics.net.

Contact Information: Contact: Jackie Reau Betsy Ross Game Day Communications (513) 929-4263