Operative treatment of typical overuse injuries in sport.

In this report 670 operations, performed in 643 patients were analyzed. The indication for the surgery was a chronic symptomatic overuse injury caused by sports and physical activity. 552 (82.4%) of the operations were performed in men and 118 (17.6%) in women. The mean age of the patients was 24 years. Almost 90 per cent of the patients had presented following competitive sports and ten per cent recreational sports. More than 91 per cent of the operations were performed for lower extremity problems. The knee, foot and ankle regions needed surgical treatment most often in this series. Tendon and tendon sheath operations formed the majority (32%) of the operations. Chronic Achilles tendon problems (159) formed the biggest group of the diagnoses. Chronic overuse injuries do not respond always to conservative treatment. Surgery is often needed in the final stage of an overuse injury. The results of these operations are good.