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Keyhole surgery is perhaps a misleading term: despite the technology, expertise and extreme finesse involved, it’s also hugely physical.
Sky News watches as surgeon Luke Jones performs an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in an operating theatre in King Edward VII’s hospital in central London.
Mr Jones (male surgeons are referred to as Mr rather than Dr) doesn’t just remove a hamstring: he pulls it out with force.
Drills bore through bone. Flesh smokes as it is cauterised. There’s a fair amount of hammering: “Mallet, please,” Mr Jones asks his assistant.
The ACL is a small band of tissue running through the middle of the knee that keeps it stable.
But watching the operation, it’s easy to understand why tearing it is so devastating. Even though the patient will only have three tiny scars, their knee has taken a pummelling.
“There’s 90 minutes in theatre with me,” Mr Jones tells Sky News, adding: “And then there is one year of rehabilitation with your physiotherapist afterwards.”
That’s why ACL injuries are so feared, especially by one type of athlete: female footballers.
‘Way too many’ women’s players with ACL injuries
Between 25 and 30 players – enough for an entire extra squad – will miss the upcoming World Cup because of ACL injuries. England stars Beth Mead and Leah Williamson have been ruled out. Data from ACL Women Football Club suggests 195 elite players have suffered the injury in the last year.
It has been described as an “epidemic”. And it is an epidemic that affects women far more than men: they are 2.5 to 3.5 times more likely to rupture an ACL than a male athlete. And we don’t really know why. Even as the women’s game has boomed, research has lagged behind.
One player who is going to the World Cup is England defender Jess Carter. Speaking before departure at St George’s Park, England’s national football centre, she tells Sky News: “There’s been way too many women’s players who…
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