Introduction: Musculoskeletal disorders play an important role in athletes’ health and success in sports; they are the main contributors to disability, and back pain is a common problem in athletes. Back pain and spinal injuries occur in players because of the repetitive and unilateral body overload during sports practice. Reviews focused on musculoskeletal disorders in basketball players are scarce in the literature. We describe a systematic review protocol for assessing the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and the associated factors in basketball players. Methods and analysis: The protocol will be based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) items and articles will be searches in the databases EMBASE, PubMed, and Scopus. Studies will be included if they are written in English and without restriction regarding the search period. All research stages will be performed by two independent reviewers and will be conducted using Rayyan. Potential disagreements will be analyzed by a third reviewer. The inter-rater reliability will be determined through the Cohen's kappa coefficient. Evidence quality will be ascertained by using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) system, while the Downs and Black checklist will be used for assessing the risk of bias. A descriptive summary and presentation of the characteristics and findings of all included studies will be provided in a table. Regarding these data, if there are sufficient high-quality studies, we plan to perform a meta-analysis. Discussion: The obtained results might possibly relate back pain to postural changes in this population. In addition, the data will be compared based on gender and different age groups. It is expected that the results can support the implementation of programs and actions for prevention, ultimately aiming at improving health, quality of life, and sports performance. Registration: PROSPERO CRD42020201653 on August, 31, 2020.

Back pain is a public health problem that affects adolescents and adults worldwide. However, studies on back pain present inconsistent findings in part due to the use of different instruments, especially for athletes. Therefore, the objective of this systematic review protocol was to map the existing evidence on such tools. The systematic review will be conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. Five electronic databases, Embase, MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, CINAHL, and Scopus will be searched. This review includes studies that investigated prevalence, incidence, and other variables. Titles and abstracts will be selected. Two independent reviewers will read the articles carefully and discrepancies, if any, will be dealt with by a third reviewer. All steps will be completed with Rayyan for systematic reviews and the methodological quality will be analyzed with a COSMIN checklist. Discussion: This systematic review will gather evidence on tools that assess back pain in athletes. The findings may indicate the most appropriate tools for assessing back pain. They will contribute to better reliability, safe measurements, and help to standardize a comparison tool between different studies. They will also assist in the development of specific tools for athletes. Registration: This review was submitted and registered under CRD42020201299 in PROSPERO.

Musculoskeletal disorders characteristically induce pain and limitations in mobility, ability, and overall functioning. In athletes, including basketball players, disorders such as back pain, postural changes, and spinal injuries are common. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the prevalence of back pain and musculoskeletal disorders in basketball players and ascertain the associated factors. Methods: The Embase, PubMed, and Scopus databases were searched for studies published in English without a time limit. Using STATA, meta-analyses were performed to estimate the prevalence of pain and musculoskeletal disorders of the back and spine. Results: Of the 4135 articles identified, 33 studies were included in this review, with 27 studies included in the meta-analysis. Of these, 21 were used for the meta-analysis of back pain, 6 articles were used for the meta-analysis of spinal injury, and 2 studies were used for the meta-analysis of postural changes. The overall prevalence of back pain was 43% [95% CI, −1% to 88%]; of these, the prevalence of neck pain was 36% [95% CI, 22–50%], the prevalence of back pain was 16% [95% CI, 4–28%], the prevalence of low back pain was 26% [95% CI, 16–37%], the prevalence of thoracic spine pain was 6% [95% CI, 3–9%]. The combined prevalence of spinal injury and spondylolysis was 10% [95% CI, 4–15%], with a prevalence of spondylolysis of 14% [95% CI, 0.1–27%]. The combined prevalence of hyperkyphosis and hyperlordosis was 30% [95% CI, 9–51%]. In conclusion, we found a high prevalence of neck pain, followed by low back pain and back pain, in basketball players. Thus, prevention programs are important to improve health and sports performance.

Materials and methods: Analysis of the numbers of MNB hospitalizations and death rate through Unified Health System (UHS), from 2008 to 2013 in Brazil. The Hospital Information System (HIS) -Unified Health System Informatics Department (UHSID) provided data. Results: MNB corresponded to 1.89% (17th cause) of the hospitalizations by neoplasms in Brazil, which had been rising since 2008, but decreased 8.3% in 2013. São Paulo was the state with the highest absolute values, responsible for 27.15% of national hospitalizations. However, stratified data evidenced Rio Grande do Sul with the highest rates for all years analyzed, with an average rate of 483.83, and a peak in 2012 (512.49), which was higher than national average (315.55), while São Paulo had an average of 351.00. Regarding death rates, although there was a slight decrease in 2013, MNB remained the 7th cause (13.65%). Conclusion: MNB are the 17th in hospitalizations in Brazil, corresponds to approximately 2% of the malignant neoplasms, befitting the literature, as well as the distribution pattern, presenting more cases in regions with higher HDI. They were also the 7th cause of deaths in the country, evidencing their high lethality.

Background: Futsal is one of the most popular sport in Brazil with millions of players worldwide. It is characterized by intermittent stimuli of high intensity anaerobic actions. Recently, studies have shown that imagery resistance training (IRT), like conventional strength training, can increase muscle strength, making it reasonable to think that this effect can also be transferred to muscle power. Purposes: we aimed to verify the acute responses of IRT on muscle power in teenage Futsal players. Methods: fifteen Futsal athletes were enrolled and underwent three visits to the laboratory: 1) familiarization with the resistance exercise they would undergo; 2) one them for vertical jump test after the IRT session and the other one for control session, without any intervention before vertical jump test. Sessions 2 and 3 being applied in random order. Results: the results indicate that acute IRT improved muscle performance, since it produced higher power output [3134.5 Watts (2744 - 3796.3)] than control session [2952.4 Watts (2637.55 - 3433.45)] (Z=3.4078; p=0.0007). In addition, all participants in IRT group showed some improvement after the IRT session. Conclusions: a single imagery resistance exercise session can increase acute muscle power output in teenage Futsal athletes.