Relationship of incidence of anterior cruciate ligament injuries and body-built Index somatotype in Indian population

Background: Incidence of ACL injuries and physical parameters like age, sex, height, weight and BMI has been studied intensely as a risk factor. Each of them poses as a different risk factor for occurrence of ACL injuries. But body-built index-somatotype considers relative proportions of fatness, muscle mass and skeletal architecture in terms of endomorphy, mesomorphy and ectomorphy in a single individual which neutralises variables like age, sex, BMI. Methods: 100 patients were included in the study, excluding those with multiligament injuries, associated fractures around knee, mucoid degeneration of ACL and road traffic accident cases. Parameters such as skin fold thickness, circumference and epicondylar, condylar width was taken into consideration. Body built index was calculated in terms of endomorphy, mesomorphy and ectomorphy using the heath-carter anthropometric somatotype manual. Results: We found that amongst all those have ACL injury, endomorphy was higher grade (5.49), followed by mesomorphy (4.75). Lesser grades of ectomorphs i.e., slender people were having ACL injuries. Though there was low margin of grading between the two, endomorphy was higher in ACL injured people followed by mesomorphy. Conclusions: Endomorphs and mesomorphs have higher tendancy of ACL injury. Ectomorphs have lesser incidence of ACL injury