Long-term functional outcome after primary repair of the lateral ligaments of the ankle.

We retrospectively reexamined a total of 100 patients 6 to 8 years after primary repair of ruptured lateral ligaments of the ankle. Fifty-nine percent of the injuries had occurred in sports; the other main causes of the injuries were accidents at work (12%), in traffic (10%), and at home (4%). Almost two-thirds of the sports injuries were sustained in volleyball. The most common type of injury was a combined rupture of the anterior talofibular and the calcaneofibular ligaments (66 patients). According to subjective assessment, 74 patients had excellent or good results. For the anterior drawer sign test, 75 patients showed no sign of instability in their injured ankles. The scores in our performance test protocol of ankle injuries were classified as excellent or good in 65 patients, fair in 27 patients, and poor in 8 patients. The overall long-term results were acceptable in the majority of the patients. Prospective, randomized studies are needed to clarify if nonoperative treatment (i.e., early controlled mobilization) would give similar long-term results.