Pathological and Morphological Peculiarities of Adolescent Basketball Players with Early Diagnosed Knee Joint Pain / Paauglių krepšininkų su anksti diagnozuotu kelio sąnario skausmu patologiniai ir morfologiniai ypatumai

Abstract

Adolescents’ bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments grow rapidly, thus the damage and peculiarities of injury prevention are significantly different not only from those of adults, but also of little children. Adolescents are especially sensitive to damage because in the period of puberty there are lot of structural, hormonal, biomechanical and functional changes in the body. When playing basketball, the number of adolescents’ noncontact knee injuries is higher than that of other athletes. Injuries are more common because while playing athletes often stop, change direction or jump up. Due to such activities especially big load lies on joint tissues, muscle and tendon complex, therefore research on athletes’ tendons adapted for such loads could reveal predictive indicators of injuries. Long-term specific physical exercise can change the morphology of tendons causing pain and increasing the likelihood of injury. The aim of research was to compare the differences in pathological and morphological indicators for adolescents who are adapted to basketball physical exercise and who suffer and do not suffer from knee pain. Research participants were 59 adolescents, who were divided into two groups. The first group (n = 29) included adolescent basketball players who had been engaged in basketball for 5 years or more and suffered from knee pain in no less than two practice sessions during the last month. The second group (n = 30) included adolescent basketball players who had been engaged in basketball for 5 years or more, but who had never complained of knee joint pain. All subjects (N = 118) underwent an ultrasound (US) examination of both knee joints, and their patellar cross-sectional area and thickness were measured. Forty four knee joints were painful and US pathology was diagnosed for 26 joints. Patellar tendon crosssectional area and thickness between the groups and between dominant and non-dominant legs did not differ (p > 0.05). We also did not find significant differences in morphological indicators between the symptomatic subjects who had clinical changes diagnosed and who did not (p > 0.05). Patellar morphological indicators in adolescent basketball players did not have any links with early diagnosed knee pain. Pain was more common in taller basketball players with more body weight. Besides, pain was often accompanied by clinical changes in knee joint, so basketball players are recommended to take regular US knee joint examinations even in adolescence. Keywords: adolescent basketball players, patellar tendon, ultrasound examination, pain. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/sm.2017.20