Ankle overuse injuries in soccer players. Morphological adaptation of the talus in the anterior impingement.

The ankle joints of 88 professional soccer players have been studied. The high presence of radiographic changes unchained in its great number by impingement phenomena among the articular areas, being 59.1% for the right ankle and 52.3% for the left one, has been confirmed. These radiographic images seem to indicate in the ankle joint the existance of osseous remodeling phenomena to face overuse and overstress, having in the major part of cases no clinical translation, so that we might denominate them as the "radiographic arthrosis of sportsman". Two types of morphological adaptation of the neck of the talus are described to face the impingement unchained in it by the anterior articular border of the distal epiphysis of the tibia. The Type A, in which changes of the "squatting facet" of the talus are detected and Type B characterized by talotibial exostosis.