QTPA Member Alert | New Study Suggests That Football Knee Injuries Are More Likely on Artificial Surfaces Than Natural Grass (25/6/2012)

New Study Suggests That Football Knee Injuries Are More Likely on Artificial Surfaces Than Natural Grass.

A new study suggests that college football players suffer knee injuries about 40 percent more often when they play on artificial turf compared to natural grass.

Dr. Jason Dragoo, the lead author of the study and a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine suggested that artificial turf may offer a more consistent playing field, and it might be expected to deliver better performance, but it has not been considered any less safe than natural grass.

Dragoo told Reuters Health “This doesn’t say there’s conclusive evidence that turf increases the injury rate, but maybe we can say it’s not as safe as we thought it was,”

The findings, published in The American to Journal of Sports Medicine, were part of a study looking back on knee injuries among college football players to see when they might be most vulnerable to getting hurt. Dragoo and his colleagues note in their report that football is the leading cause of sports-related injuries in the U.S.

Reuters reported that the research team examined cases of tears to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee that were reported to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Injury Surveillance System. The surveillance system includes about 10 percent of schools in the NCAA, and the study period spanned the 2004-2009 playing seasons.

The study found 318 injuries to the ACL during those seasons, which translated to a rate of 14 injuries for every 100,000 “exposures.” Each time a player practiced, scrimmaged or played a game was counted as one exposure. ACL injuries were 10 times more common during games than during practices, and close to five times as common during scrimmages than during regular practice. Athletes were also 1.39 times as likely to be injured when playing on modern artificial turf as they were when playing on natural grass. The newer types of artificial playing fields are called infill surfaces. They have a layer of synthetic grass over a field of rubberized pellets called fill.

There were close to 18 injuries for every 100,000 exposures among athletes playing on infill surfaces, compared to 14 injuries for every 100,000 practices or games that took place on artificial turf without fill or on natural grass.

Dr. James Bradley, the chief orthopedic surgeon for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a clinical professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the findings support what’s also been observed in the National Football League. Bradley suggested that the problem might be the shoe surface interface with the field. Dragoo seemed to agree, suggesting the players may be getting such a good grip on the artificial surface that the leg doesn’t give way as it does on natural grass and the resulting force is driven to the knee. Both men seem to agree that different shoes might resolve the problem.

In the interim, perhaps football players and other athletes should tread a bit more lightly on artificial turf.

Reference: Incidence and Risk Factors for Injuries to the Anterior Cruciate Ligament in National Collegiate Athletic Association Football

Data From the 2004-2005 Through 2008-2009 National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance System

Jason L. Dragoo, MD, Hillary J. Braun, BA, Jennah L. Durham, Michael R. Chen, MD and Alex H.S. Harris, PhD. Investigation performed at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Stan-ford University, Redwood City, California

Jason L. Dragoo, MD, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Stanford University, 450 Broadway Street, Pavilion C, 4th Floor, Redwood City, CA 94063-6342 (e-mail: jdra-goo@stanford.edu).

http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/04/0363546512442336