Whether your child plays football, basketball, soccer or
gymnastics, a common worry for many parents is the looming
possibility of a sports injury. In many of these sports,
anatomic anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears are one of the
most common injuries young athletes experience. For most
children who injure their ACL, treatment consists of
rehabilitation, wearing a brace, and reducing athletic activity
levels until they stop growing (usually around their mid-teens),
at which point ACL reconstruction surgery can safely be
performed. Why do we wait until kids stop growing to perform the
surgery? ACL operations are typically conducted with extensive
use of X-rays in the operating room, which often leads to a
large margin of “chance” when working around growth plates.
Essentially, performing ACL surgery on a young child
significantly increases the risk of causing a growth plate
disturbance. To help ease this fear and risk, we’ve developed a
new 3-D MRI technology at Emory Sports Medicine Center. The 3-D
MRI t