MOON’s Strategy for Obtaining Over Eighty Percent Follow-up at 10 Years Following ACL Reconstruction

The Multicenter Orthopaedic Outcomes Network (MOON) study of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction has achieved >80% follow-up for study subjects who were enrolled from 2002 to 2005; patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) were reported at 2, 6, and 10 years through a carefully designed protocol that included surgeon involvement to encourage subjects to complete and return questionnaires. The process included emails and telephone calls from the central coordinating center, from research coordinators at each local institution, and lastly, from the subjects' surgeons for those who were less inclined to complete the follow-up. In order to quantify the effect of site and surgeon involvement, the enrollment year of 2005 was monitored for the 10-year follow-up (n = 516 subjects). In contact efforts made by the coordinating center, 73.8% (381) of study subjects were reached by the central site coordinator, contact information was verified, and questionnaires were subsequently sent, completed, and returned. An additional 54 subjects (10.5% of the overall study population) returned the questionnaire after local study site involvement, indicating the importance of individual surgeon and local site involvement to improve follow-up rates in multicenter studies in orthopaedic surgery. Follow-up rates were higher when a specific individual (the surgeon or the research coordinator) was given the task of final follow-up.