ORLANDO—Surgeries related to overuse elbow injuries are more common among youth athletes than previously believed, according to research presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and published in the July issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
“Our results showed that 15- to 19-year-olds accounted for 56.7% of the ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCLR) or Tommy John surgeries performed in the US between 2007 and 2011. This is a significant increase over time with an average increase of 9.12% per year,” said lead study author Brandon Erickson, MD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.
Brandon Erickson, MD
Dr. Erickson and his research team performed a retrospective analysis of a private payer database using the PearlDiver Supercomputer to identify UCLR procedures performed throughout the United States.
The overall average annual incidence of the procedure was 3.96 +/-0.38 per 100,000 patients with an annual overall growth rate of 4.2%. There were 695 males and 95 females involved in the analysis. Twenty to 24-year olds accounted for the second highest incident rate at 22.2%.
Other findings from the study included that the southern region of the US performed significantly more UCLR procedures than any other region with 53%. Most of the surgeries were also performed between April and June. Fifty-eight percent of the procedures were performed in an outpatient hospital setting, 40% were performed at a surgical center, and 3% of procedures were performed in an inpatient hospital setting.
“The research numbers suggest that more young athletes believe that having an UCLR procedure performed earlier in their career may lead to the big leagues or a scholarship, even though only one in 200 kids who play high school baseball will make it to Major League Baseball. This paradigm shift needs to be evaluated further to help prevent overuse injuries in kids from the beginning of the season when most issues arise,” said Dr. Erickson.