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Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears are being seen and treated with increasing frequency in youth athletes, with the goal of returning patients to sports activity. This is particularly important for youth athletes, for whom sports provide physical, social and psychological development.

To perform a systematic review of the orthopaedic surgery literature to investigate for any associations between treatment strategy and return to athletic activity after ACL tear in youth athletes under age 18 years.

PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane computerised databases.

Inclusion criteria: (1) <18 years of age, (2) investigation of a relationship between time to treatment and consequent rates of returning to preinjury levels of athletic activity, (3) original research article (eg, not a review, case report or meta-analysis). Exclusion criteria: (1) revision ACL surgery, (2) language other …