No correlation of height or gender with anterior cruciate ligament footprint size

Recently, there has been much interest in anatomic double-bundle reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Double-bundle reconstruction of the ACL requires adequate footprint size to place two femoral tunnels. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a correlation between lateral intercondylar ridge length and gender and/ or height. We measured the femoral attachment of the ACL to determine if patient sex and/or height could be used to predict ACL femoral footprint size. We measured the length of the lateral intercondylar ridge in 65 skeletally mature human femora. Gender and height was recorded for each individual. We used bivariate regression analysis to determine correlations between both height and gender and the length of the lateral intercondylar ridge. The principal findings of our study demonstrate that there is no correlation between ACL femoral footprint size and gender or footprint size and height. Our study demonstrates that patient height and gender cannot be used for preoperative planning when deciding whether a given patient has adequate footprint size to support double-bundle reconstruction of the ACL.