Journal de médecine du sport et d'études sur le dopage

Objective: The purposes of this study were: 1) to investigate the effects of menstrual cycle on the basal levels of salivary cytokines (interleukin IL-6 and IL-8) in young healthy women; 2) to examine the influences of prolonged aerobic exercise at ventilatory threshold (VT) on salivary and circulating IL-6 and IL-8 concentrations during menstrual phase.

Methods: Eight healthy women participated in three visits (saliva sampling during menstrual, follicular and luteal phases) and two trials (exercise and resting trials during a separate menstrual phase). The exercise trial involved a 60- min cycling at VT and the resting trial involved resting for 90 min.Saliva and blood samples were taken at before, immediately after and 30 min post-exercise and equivalent times during the resting trial.

Results: Salivary IL-6 level was higher during the follicular phase than the luteal phase at rest. Salivary IL-8 immediately post-exercise was higher than pre-exercise, and circulating IL-6 was significantly increased from pre-exercise to immediately post-exercise and 30 min post exercise.

Conclusion: The results showed that salivary cytokines are influenced by menstrual cycle and prolonged exercise during menstrual phase.However the levels of IL-6 and IL-8 in saliva do not closely reflect those in plasma, and therefore might reflect a local level of inflammation.

Objective: Verify the efficacy of rehabilitative treatment according with splinting and early mobilization on a patient with joint and tendon injury after sport activity.

Methods: The patient is a 39 years old caucasian man, he arrived at the emergency department for high-impact trauma during sport activity. The diagnosis was avulsion of the volar plate at the proximal phalanx and extensor tendon rupture at the distal phalanx. The surgical approach has been reinsertion of the volar plate at the base of the middle phalanx with 2 micromyteck anchors and extensor tendon tenorrafy after stabilization with transarticular Kirschner wire. He was subsequently subjected to early and protected mobilization program. The patient was assessed with the PRWHE, VAS and ROM every 7 days after surgery.

Results: The results obtained following the setted clinical protocol are encouraging for the VAS, that improved from 8 to 2 points from the first to the last evaluation. Also the PRHWE index gave excellent results going from an initial value of 88/100 to a ending value of 3/100.

Conclusions: The patient reached an excellent recovery of flexion-extension of the proximal interphalangeal joint and distal interphalangeal joint, he reintegrated gesture and functionality of the finger and hand in ADL and sport activities, thanks to an early mobilization protocol and to a continuous adaptation of the splinting.

The meniscus provide several important mechanical functions in the knee joint. Following menisectomy the tibiofemoral contact area decreases while the contact forces increase. Meniscal allograft transplantation (MAT) offers the potential to restore partial load-bearing, decrease symptoms, and provide chondroprotective effect. Ideal patient for MAT should have normal alignment, stable knee, abscence of cartilage damage and has less than 50 years-old. Several open and arthroscopic MAT techniques have been described. The succesful of MAT is to use a minimal invasive technique without sacrificing the precise anatomic reconstruction of the original meniscofemoaral and meniscotibial relationships. Anatatomical position, appropriate sizing of the graft, and fixation method are crucial key points to have good results. In general there are three fixation methods: soft tissue fixation, suture fixation through transoseous tunnels, and bone plugs press-fit fixation. However, inferior biomechanical and contact pressure have been reported with soft tissue and transosseous tunnels compared with the bone block technique.

There are many kinds of skin injuries and trauma in triathlon competition, because triathlon is three kinds of exercise. The number of triathletes is growing in the world since becoming Olympic game; however there is not any significant data of skin injuries in triathletes. Actually, skin injuries might be caused in more athletes; most of skin injuries are not serious and not counted. Our focus is skin injuries and trauma in triathlon competition, and it is possible to prevent or reduce most of skin injury by careful and safety actions

Recurrent patella dislocation can be caused by bony abnormalities, such as patella alta, increased tibial tubercle lateralization, trochlea dysplasia, excessive femoral neck anteversion and external tibial torsion. It can also be caused by soft tissue abnormalities such as a ruptured medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) or a weak vastus medialis obliquus. It has been reported in the literature that acute lateral dislocation of the patella can be associated with proximal injury to the medial collateral ligament (MCL).

This article reports the case of a 26-year-old male pro footballer who had recurrent patella dislocation related to previous injury to his MPFL and worsened by dynamic valgus knee instability due to chronic MCL insufficiency.