(Press-News.org) Los Angeles, CA (April 23, 2013) -- Male athletes are the group most likely to tear their Achilles tendon, according to a new study published in the April 2013 issue of Foot & Ankle International (FAI), A SAGE journal. The activity most likely to cause the injury was basketball, and NBA players such as Kobe Bryant have been in the news lately for this exact injury.
Drs. Steven Raikin, David Garras and Philip Krapchev reviewed 406 records from patients at one clinic diagnosed with Achilles tendon injuries from August 2000 and December 2010. The average age was 46 years old, 83% of the patients were males, and sports were responsible for 68% of the ruptures.
The most common sports involved were basketball (32% of all ruptures), tennis (9%), and football (8%). Among patients younger than 55 years of age, 77% of ruptures occurred during sports, compared to 42% of the patients 55 or older.
Older patients, and those whose BMI (body-mass index) was greater than 30, were more likely to have non-sports related causes and were more likely to not have been diagnosed correctly at the time of injury. Greater than one-third of the tendon ruptures not caused by sports occurred at work. When the diagnosis was missed, it was usually because the initial diagnosis was an ankle sprain.
"Delayed diagnosis and treatment have been shown to result in poorer outcomes," says Steven Raikin, MD, of the Rothman Institute in Philadelphia, PA, and American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) member. "Older individuals, and those with a higher BMI, should be evaluated carefully if they have lower leg pain or swelling in the Achilles tendon region."
Re-rupture of the same tendon occurred in 5% of the group, and 6% of the study's population had previously ruptured the other leg's tendon. The study supported previous findings that an Achilles tendon rupture on one leg increases the likelihood of a rupture on the other leg. When the same tendon was re-ruptured, 85% of those injuries had not been treated surgically earlier.
For further information on how to take care of your feet and ankles, or to find a local orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeon, visit the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society patient website at http://www.footcaremd.org. Foot & Ankle International is published by SAGE.
###
"Achilles Tendon Injuries in a United States Population" by Steven M. Raikin, MD; David N. Garras, MD;
and Philip V. Krapchev, MD published April 2013 in Foot & Ankle International. To read the full text of the article, free for a limited time, click here http://fai.sagepub.com/content/34/4/475.full
About the AOFAS
The AOFAS promotes quality, ethical and cost-effective patient care through education, research and training of orthopaedic surgeons and other health care providers. It creates public awareness for the prevention and treatment of foot and ankle disorders, provides leadership, and serves as a resource for government, industry and the national and international health care community.
About Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Surgeons
Orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeons are medical doctors (MD and DO) who specialize in the diagnosis, care, and treatment of patients with disorders of the musculoskeletal system of the foot and ankle. This includes the bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons, nerves and skin. Orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeons use medical, physical, and rehabilitative methods as well as surgery to treat patients of all ages. They perform reconstructive procedures, treat sports injuries, and manage and treat trauma of the foot and ankle.
Orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeons work with physicians of many other specialties, including internal medicine, pediatrics, vascular surgery, endocrinology, radiology, anesthesiology, and others. Medical school curriculum and post-graduate training proves the solid clinical background necessary to recognize medical problems, admit patients to a hospital when necessary, and contribute significantly to the coordination of care appropriate to each patient.
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. http://www.sagepublications.com.
Achilles tendon injuries more likely in male 'Weekend Warriors' than others
2013-04-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Drug therapy offers high cure rate for 2 hepatitis C subtypes
2013-04-24
A new drug is offering dramatic cure rates for hepatitis C patients with two subtypes of the infection -- genotype 2 and 3, say a team of scientists led by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers. These two subtypes account for approximately 25 percent of hepatitis C infection in the United States.
The drug, called sofosbuvir, offers more effective treatment for most patients studied in a Phase 3 clinical trial who had no other treatment options, report researchers in The New England Journal of Medicine. After three months of combined therapy with sofosbuvir and the ...
JCI early table of contents for April 24, 2013
2013-04-24
An ACE in the hole for hypertension
There are multiple environmental triggers that contribute to high blood pressure (hypertension), including aging, obesity, stress, alcohol intake, and excess dietary salt; however, the physiological mechanisms that are regulated by these triggers are not fully understood. Blood pressure is controlled in part by the renin angiotensin system (RAS), which manages the release of the hormone angiotensin to control blood vessel constriction. ACE is an enzyme that converts angiotensin to its active form, Ang II, and ACE inhibitors are commonly ...
A potential biomarker for pregnancy-associated heart disease?
2013-04-24
Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is a deterioration in cardiac function that occurs in pregnant women during the last month or in the months following their pregnancy. This disorder can occur in women with no prior history of heart disease and the causes are not well understood. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ingrid Struman and colleagues at the University of Liege in Liege, Belgium, identified a molecule, miR-146a, that can serve as a biomarker for peripartum cardiomyopathy. Struman and colleagues found that expression of miR-146a was induced by ...
No rebirth for insulin secreting pancreatic beta cells
2013-04-24
Pancreatic beta cells store and release insulin, the hormone responsible for stimulating cells to convert glucose to energy. The number of beta cells in the pancreas increases in response to greater demand for insulin or injury, but it is not clear if the new beta cells are the result of cell division or the differentiation of a precursor cell, a process known as neogenesis. Knowledge of how beta cells are created and maintained is critical to understanding diseases in which these cells are lost, such as diabetes. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, ...
Firefly protein lights up degenerating muscles, aiding muscular-dystrophy research
2013-04-24
STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have created a mouse model of muscular dystrophy in which degenerating muscle tissue gives off visible light.
The observed luminescence occurs only in damaged muscle tissue and in direct proportion to cumulative damage sustained in that tissue, permitting precise monitoring of the disease's progress in the mice, the researchers say.
While this technique cannot be used in humans, it paves the way to quicker, cheaper and more accurate assessment of the efficacy of therapeutic drugs. The new mouse strain ...
Odd experiments by 'America's first physiologist' shed light on digestion
2013-04-24
BOSTON—A fur trader who suffered an accidental gunshot wound in 1822 and the physician who saw this unfortunate incidence as an opportunity for research are key to much of our early knowledge about the workings of the digestive system, say speakers of an upcoming symposium.
These speakers—Jay Dean, Ph.D., of the University of South Florida, Richard Rogers, Ph.D., of Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, and Patrick Lambert, Ph.D., of Creighton University—will give their symposium presentation entitled, "William Beaumont: America's First Physiologist ...
Tinkerbella nana -- a new representative from the world of fairyflies
2013-04-24
Mymaridae, commonly known as fairyflies, are one of about 18 families of chalcid wasps. Fairyflies occur worldwide, except in Antarctica. They include the world's smallest known winged insect - Kikiki huna, the body length of which is only 155 μm, and the smallest known adult insect – the wingless male of Dicopomorpha echmepterygis which is only 130 μm. Although fairyflies are among the most common chalcid wasps, they are seldomly noticed by humans because of their minute size. Their apparent invisibility, gracile bodies and delicate wings with long fringes resembling ...
Costs to treat heart failure expected to more than double by 2030
2013-04-24
By 2030, you — and every U.S. taxpayer — could be paying $244 a year to care for heart failure patients, according to an American Heart Association policy statement.
The statement, published online in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Heart Failure, predicts:
The number of people with heart failure could climb 46 percent from 5 million in 2012 to 8 million in 2030.
Direct and indirect costs to treat heart failure could more than double from $31 billion in 2012 to $70 billion in 2030.
"If we don't improve or reduce the incidence of heart failure ...
NASH diagnosis set to improve with non-invasive tool
2013-04-24
A Chinese study presented at the International Liver CongressTM 2013 has demonstrated the
accuracy of a non-invasive test for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) diagnosis.
Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver disease (NAFLD) comprises two groups of patients; one group with
simple steatosis which is relatively benign and one group with NASH which may progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Up to now the only means of distinguishing the two was to perform a liver biopsy. Phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS), which allows non-invasive in vivo assessment ...
Direct-acting antivirals now ready for prime time
2013-04-24
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Wednesday 24 April 2013: New data from a number of clinical trials presented for the first time at the International Liver Congress™ 2013 demonstrate encouraging results in the use of new direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) for the treatment of hepatitis C.
The following covers key results from the much anticipated Phase III trials conducted among HCV patients with a range of genotypes (GT 1 to 6) on DAA treatment.
POSITRON
A study of interferon (IFN)-ineligible, IFN-intolerant, or IFN-unwilling cirrhotic and non-cirrhotic GT 2 and ...