Lower limb tendinopathy in athletes

Abstract

Tendinopathy is a common and debilitating problem especially affecting athletes. Understanding of the disease has increased over the past two decades with the most notable change being in the perception that the pathology of tendinopathy is of a noninflammatory origin. The most prevalent aetiological factors implicated in the development of tendinopathy in athletes are overuse and training errors. The commonest lower limb tendinopathy affects the achilles tendon closely followed by patella tendinosis. Achilles tendinopathy is usually seen in running sports whereas patella tendinopathy is commoner in sports that involve jumping. The diagnosis can be confirmed by taking a good history and clinical examination and supported by appropriate radiological imaging. The investigations of choice are ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging with each of the investigations having some benefit over the other depending on the questions needing to be answered for the clinician. Treatment of lower limb tendinopathy is mainly conservative and includes activity modification, correction of training errors and eccentric exercises. To date, there have not been any conclusive studies to prove the benefits of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and steroids which are currently used to help in the management of pain. Surgical treatment has a variable success rate (45—100%) and is normally reserved as the last option if conservative modalities fail. Novel therapies like infection of sclerosing agent, Traumeel®, platelet-derived growth factors (PDGF) or autologous blood injections into diseased tendons are showing promising results but need more multicentre clinical trials to evaluate their efficacy.