BACKGROUND: Graft selection and histological fate for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction is a hot topic in the fields of reconstruction and repair of anterior cruciate ligament.OBJECTIVE: To review structure of anterior cruciate ligament and graft selection.METHODS: Articles were retrieved from Medline database with the key words of "Anterior cruciate ligament, implant,reconstruction" between January 1980 and January 2010. inclusion criteria: ① Reconstructive surgery of anterior cruciate ligament injury; ② graft selection of anterior cruciate ligament. Exclusion criteria: ① the old literatures; ② repetitive studies. A total of articles related to reconstruction of anterior cruciate ligament were retrieved, but 33 ones were included in the final analysis. The old, duplicated, and similar studies were excluded.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: At present, the major therapy for anterior cruciate ligament injury includes arthroscopy and arthroscopy-assisted reconstruction. For clincal application, there are a lot of grafts, including autogenous grafts, allografts,heterologous allograft, biological materials, artificial materials and tissue engineering grafts. Autogenous semitendinosus tendon and gracilis tendon or autogenous bone-patellar tendon (middle 1/3)-bone (BPTB) are mainly used for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction at home and abroad.