Evaluation of the Posterior Tibial Slope in Noncontact ACL Injuries Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

This study investigated whether an increased posterior tibial slope (PTS) was a risk factor for noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. We retrospectively evaluated the Magnetic Resonance (MR) images of 60 patients with noncontact complete ruptures of the ACL and 60 age-matched, healthy individuals with normal knee MR images. We measured the medial and lateral PTS on the sagittal T1W images separately in both the patients with complete ACL ruptures and the control group, as described by Hudek et al. Medial and lateral PTS were investigated between two groups. The patients with complete ACL ruptures had a statistically significantly (p<0.01) larger PTS on the lateral tibial condyle than the control group (4.5 degrees and 3.8 degrees, respectively). However, there was no statistically significant differences between the two groups' medial PTS. Also, the lateral PTS was greater in the complete ACL group than the control group in both females and males (p<0.01).