Children and adolescent athletes constitute the largest demographic of patients who sustain anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, and the frequency is increasing.

In ACL-deficient children and adolescents, continued symptoms of instability can result in progressive meniscal
and cartilage damage as well as arthritic changes.

Growth disturbance can occur after ACL surgery in children, and includes tibial recurvatum due to tibial tubercle apophyseal arrest as well as limb-length discrepancy and/or angular deformity due to physeal arrest or overgrowth.

Several “physeal sparing” and “physeal respecting” ACL reconstruction techniques have been developed for use in skeletally immature patients to minimize the risk of growth disturbance, with favorable clinical outcomes.

ACL injury prevention strategies include neuromuscular conditioning and may be performed to prevent both initial ACL injury as well as reinjury and injury of the contralateral ACL after reconstruction