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Dr. Hacker explains how he cares for patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries.
Dr. Hacker:
ACL injuries have been around for a long time, and the traditional treatment for that has been to essentially take tissue from somewhere else to put in place of the ACL that’s torn.
There are newer technologies coming out and that have been out for the last few years where we actually try to work with your tissue that’s already there, to get that tissue to heal back and function as a normal ACL again, and this is a very exciting area of interest that is new and has shown great success.
This should be especially interesting to women because the rate of ACL injuries in women participating in sporting activities is thought to be as high as eight-times higher than that of men in many research studies. The thought is that there is some relationship to women’s monthly hormonal cycle, and the presence of those hormones causes ligaments to become more flexible than they might ordinarily be and may make a woman more susceptible to injury.
About Dr. Hacker, M.D., M.S.:
Dr. Hacker specializes in sports medicine, both on and off the field. Dr. Hacker completed extensive training in bioengineering at both the undergraduate and graduate level, and was given a Regent's Fellowship as well as a National Science Foundation Honorable Mention for his work. He completed a Master's Thesis in Engineering on the properties of meniscal tissue in addition to multiple projects including pioneering research in ACL healing and repair. He then served as director of the Coutts Institute in San Diego, a leading center for Orthopaedic research. Dr. Hacker completed an orthopedic research fellowship studying the ability to grow and transplant cartilage.
Visit Dr. Hacker at the Alvarado Orthopedic Medical Group