ORIGINAL ARTICLE  SPORT INJURIES AND REHABILITATION 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2020 January;60(1):102-9

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.19.09925-0

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

The application of musculoskeletal ultrasonography in sports injuries of lower limbs in Chongqing Marathon competition

Jiao LIU ¹, Jing YU ², Yong ZHOU ^{1, 3}, Gongwei JIA ¹, Ying YIN ¹, Zonghui WU ⁴, Botao TAN ¹ ✉, Lehua YU ¹

¹ Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China; ² Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China; ³ Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical College, Hainan, China; ⁴ Sport Rehabilitation Research Institute, Southwest University, Chongqing, China

BACKGROUND: High incidence of sports injury occurring during marathon competitions urges a pressing demand for a convenient and accurate diagnostic tool of such injuries. However, contemporary information on the application of musculoskeletal ultrasonography (MSUS) in sports injury is not sufficient.
METHODS: A repeated measures study was used to describe the distribution of lower limb injuries in the Chongqing marathon and the application of MSUS in assessing these sports injuries. To verify the diagnostic accuracy of MSUS for sports injury, participants were assigned to group A (MSUS group) or group B (Sports medicine physician, i.e. SMP group), each group had an independent procedure of making a diagnosis. That is, ultrasound physicians in group A made a diagnosis from the ultrasonographic images while sports medicine physicians in group B synthesizing symptoms and signs of patients to identify the exact injury.
RESULTS: No statistically significant difference was found in the participants of the baseline characteristics between the two groups (P>0.05). In both groups, the knee was accounted as the vast majority of running injury sites, followed by the ankle (P=0.152). Tendons and ligaments injuries (χ2=48.437 and P=0.000) were the most common types of injury. Visual Analog Scale (VAS), a higher score of which indicates severer pain (0 to 10), was used to evaluate the severity of pain from injuries. VAS scores decreased significantly (P<0.05) in both groups after immediate treatment and the decrease in group A was significantly greater than group B (P=0.007). For athletes with pain sustained or exacerbated, further MRI exam showed a concordance rate of approximately 100% between MSUS and MRI diagnosis.
CONCLUSIONS: Musculoskeletal ultrasonography could be applied as an efficient method for the diagnosis of sports injuries in the athletic competition field.

KEY WORDS: Musculoskeletal system; Ultrasonography; Athletic injuries; Early diagnosis