Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL) tear

The posterior cruciate ligament is an immensely strong ligament at the back of the joint, which helps control straight-line stability and acceleration/deceleration of the knee. It is much less often injured than the anterior cruciate ligament.
Someone running into the front of the knee and driving the legbone backward on the thighbone is the usual injury mechanism. It can also be injured by a direct fall on the bent knee.
These injuries usually respond very well (although slowly) to physiotherapy rehabilitation techniques. It may take up to 8 or 10 weeks for such an injury to return to sport.
There will sometimes be associated injuries to other structures in the knee such as the medial cartilage or the medial joint surface and an MRI scan and possibly an arthroscopy may be required.
Sometimes the knee initially responds well to non operative managemnt then later develops problems which begin as pain. In this situation a PCL reconstruction will be necessary.
Early surgery soon after injury to reconstruct the ligament is rarely required but can be performed arthroscopically also using a patella tendon graft. The surgery is more difficult and less successful than the much more common ACL reconstruction.