Thigh muscles injuries in professional soccer players: a one year longitudinal study

Abstract

Thigh muscles indirect injuries are common finding in soccer and represent a critical challenge for teams medical staffs. Indirect injuries are classified on the basis of their site and their clinical and radiological findings, but the assessment of a precise prognosis remains a crucial point. Both ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance (MR) represent effective techniques not only to detect indirect injuries but also to accurately determine severity, location, and, consequently, the prognosis. In this setting, our aim is to review imaging findings of professional athletes muscle tears at three time points (3 days, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks after the time of injury) and, further, to investigate the correlation between tears extent and lay-off time of the athletes. Combined US-MR assessment could be helpful in the management of thigh muscles indirect injuries providing accurate information about the site, the extent, and the healing process.

Quality assessment of muscle injury classification in sports: a systematic literature review l

“…Regarding some features used for methodological evaluation, six classifications had no study with patients to assess whether the proposed graduation correlated with clinical and radiological findings 8,14,19,21,27,28 . Among 11 studies that evaluated patients, 4 involved soccer players 22,24,29,30 , 2 included Australian football (Australian rules) players 18,25 , 2 involved athletics 26,31 , 1 with football (American football) players 20 and 2 involving sportsman without definition of sport 19,21 . The athletes largest study was conducted in Brazil and published in 1993 by Lopes et al 24 in which 2670 soccer players were evaluated ( Table I).…”

“…The most frequently assessed muscle group was hamstrings. Eight studies evaluated hamstring injuries isolated 15,18,20,[25][26][27]29,31 , while 3 studies included more muscle groups: Corazza et al 22 and Ekstrand et al 30 assessed injuries of the thigh and Takebayashi et al 17 assessed hamstrings, quadriceps and calves. One study evaluated lesions of the rectus femoris muscle 19 and the 5 other studies did not define which muscle group were evaluated 8,14,21,24,28 .…”

“…2). In patient selection domain, 7 studies 18,22,25,26,[29][30][31] presented low risk of bias and the other 10 had high or unclear risk of bias. In each of the other 3 domains (index test, reference standard, flow and timing) less than 1/3 presented low risk of bias.…”

“…When the articles were divided into the 3 groups described in methods, it was found 3 classifications 6,16,23 in the first group as shown above. The second group formed by graduations without validation studies but that presented clinical outcome consisted of 7 studies 15,17,18,20,22,25,26 . The remaining seven studies formed the third group 8,14,19,24,27,28,32 .…”

Injuries in Portuguese Amateur Youth Football Players: A Six Month Prospective Descriptive Study

“…10,20,25,26 Recent studies dealing with professional football players Nogueira M, et al Injuries in portuguese amateur youth football players, Acta Med Port 2017 Dec;30 (12):840-847 demonstrate that thigh muscles injuries represent more than 30% of all injuries and cause higher number of days away from competition. 27 Corazza et al 27 explained these numbers: thigh muscles achieve a high level of exposure by crossing two joints (hamstrings, gracilis and rectus femoris), all of which are essential to various football movements such as sprinting, jumping and kicking.…”