Epidemiologic characteristics of anterior cruciate ligament injury in 10 consecutive seasons of Turkish Division-1 professional football league
Abdülhamit Mısır1
, Kutalmış Albayrak2, Muhammed Bilal Kürk3
1Orthopedics and Traumatology Department, Medicana International İstanbul Hospital, İstanbul, Türkiye
2Orthopedics and Traumatology Department, Van Training and Research Hospital, Van, Türkiye
3Orthopedics and Traumatology Section, Başakşehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital, , İstanbul, Türkiye
Keywords: Anterior cruciate ligament, injury, football, epidemiology, super league
Abstract
Objective: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a potentially career-threatening injury in professional athletes. This study aimed to evaluate the epidemiology and injury characteristics of ACL rupture of male football players participating in the Turkish Super League.
Materials and Methods: Epidemiologic characteristics of professional male football players participating in the professional first division Turkish Super League in 10 consecutive seasons were evaluated through a publicly available online soccer archive. Exposures in matches, as well as training, were calculated.
Results: A total of 100 ACL injuries were included (mean age at the time of injury: 25.2±3.9). Of these, 13% were re-rupture and 11% were contralateral rupture. The ACL incidence rate was 0.4060 per 1000 hours of play during Super League matches, 0.0801 per 1000 hours of training (rate ratio [RR], 5.06; 95% CI, 3.25-11.84; p<0.001), and 0.0622 per 1000 hours of total play. Although there was a regular number in other periods, the most frequent injury was in August. Also, training injuries peaked in July. A significantly higher incidence rate was found for the teams ranked from 1st to 5thplace compared with teams ranked 6th to 18th (0.0654 vs 0.0317 per 1000 hours of training; RR, 2.06; 95% CI, 1.44-3.65; p<0.05). A similar finding was found for total injury incidence proportion (2.17% vs 1.36%; p<0.05).
Conclusion: Epidemiologic data is important as a resource for athletes and those responsible for their health to develop appropriate training and preparation programs to reduce the risk of ACL injury.
Cite this article as: Misir A, Albayrak K, Kurk MB. Epidemiologic characteristics of anterior cruciate ligament injury in 10 consecutive seasons of Turkish Division-1 professional football league . Turk J Sports Med. 2022, 57(3):155-60; https://doi.org/10.47447/tjsm.0649
Ethics committee approval is not needed due to publicly accessible data interpretation.
Concept: AM; Design: AM and KA; Supervision: AM; Data Collections and Processing: KA and MBK; Analysis and Interpretation: AM, KA, and MBK; Literature Review: AM, KA, and MBK; Writing Manuscript: AM; Critical Reviews: KA and MBK.
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to authorship and/or publication of the article.
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or publication of this article.
