[Cruciate ligament injuries of the knee joint]

There is no general agreement on conservative or operative treatment for ruptures of the cruciate ligament. The degree of resulting instability and the athletic ambitions of the patient in particular usually determine the individual therapeutic approach. In our experience, conservative treatment, emphasizing muscle training, can only achieve good medium-term results in unidirectional instabilities in the transverse plane, as expected after isolated rupture of the anterior or posterior cruciate ligament. Continuous long-term deterioration, however, must be anticipated, so that primary operative treatment is justified in patients under 40 who are active in sports. Multidirectional instability, which occurs in multilocular lesions of the ligaments and capsule, call for operative stabilization in order to restore the ability to participate in athletics.