Knee surgery may not cut careers short

KEYSTONE, Colo., July 11 (UPI) -- Knee surgery doesn't necessarily cut short a professional football career, a researcher reported at an orthopedic conference in Keystone, Colo., Saturday.

Robert H. Brophy, an assistant professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine and assistant team physician for the St. Louis Rams, delivered a paper on his study of two new surgeries at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's annual meeting.

He found football players who had anterior-cruciate ligament reconstruction have a longer playing career than those who have a simple meniscus repair.

The ACL is the ligament that restricts forward motion of the shin. An injury to the ACL makes the knee less stable and more prone to arthritis and cartilage tears.

The meniscus is a disc that cushions the knee. The meniscus surgery has a briefer recovery time than ACL reconstruction, but apparently leads to a shorter career, Brophy said.

Players who have had ACL reconstruction have careers of similar length to those of players without ACL injuries.

Brophy said his study used statistics from NFL athletes from 1987 to 2000.