Anterior knee pain is a common presenting complaint amongst adolescent athletes. The diagnosis of tendinopathy in this age group is considered less likely than the diagnosis of apophysitis. We hypothesised that patellar tendinosis may occur at a younger age than is recognised in the literature. Clinically and with ultrasonography (US), we studied the patellar tendons of 134 elite 14-18 year old female (n=64) and male (n=70) basketball players and 29 swimmers (18 female, 12 male). Clinically, basketball players were separated into one of 3 groups: current jumper`s knee, never jumper`s knee or a mixed category of previous jumper`s knee and other anterior knee pain. We found that 19 tendons (7%) were currently symptomatic (11% in males, 2% in females). Of tendons categorised clinically as `never patellar tendinosis`, 22% had a sonographic hypoechoic region nevertheless. Sonographically, tendon changes had a similar appearance to that seen in adult athletes, however 6 tendons exhibited multiple microhypoechoic foci characterised by multiple (2-3), small (1-3mm) hypoechoic regions seen in the axial images. This sonographic appearance has not been described in adults. Overall 26% of the basketball players` patellar tendons contained a sonographic region compared with 2% of swimmers. Male tendons were twice as likely as female tendons to have a hypoechoic region. The width and area of hypoechoic regions male tendons were larger in tendons that were symptomatic than those that were hypoechoic and without symptoms. Patellar tendinosis was more prevalent in the oldest tertile of players (37%) than the youngest tertile (24%). This study indicates that patellar tendinosis can occur with and without symptoms in basketball players in the second decade.
© Copyright 1999 5th IOC World Congress on Sport Sciences with the Annual Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport 1999. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.