Sport

The importance of ultrasound in sports

We are in the 60th minute of a football match, in the third half of a volleyball match, or in the middle of a 400 metre race. Suddenly an athlete collapses to the ground clutching his thigh or calf, leaves the competition field on a stretcher and where are they taking him?

Surely in an ultrasound clinic, after having made a summary evaluation.

In fact, ultrasound is particularly useful and irreplaceable in the field of sports medicine.

It has established itself for years as a first choice accurate examination technique, in fact it allows to carry out a dynamic investigation at the same time as the clinical examination and competes with the diagnostic capacity of MRI which requires much more complex technology and structures. It also allows the repeated control over time of a muscle lesion and the comparison with previous investigations to evaluate the evolution of the lesion.

As for the sports field, it satisfies a fundamental need if a muscle problem occurs: assess the extent of the problem in order to bring the athlete back to competitions as quickly as possible. It also allows you to immediately identify problems avoiding other more invasive diagnostic procedures and to evaluate injuries in real time, in conditions of rest and even during active muscle contraction. Finally, it also evaluates all other muscle tendon pathologies, both inflammatory and neoplastic.

It should also be emphasised that in recent years it has seen the development of interventional therapeutic techniques. That is, it allows you to guide a needle directly into the site of the lesion with the possibility of introducing a drug or taking biopsy samples. This makes it possible to immediately evaluate the diagnostic response to the administration of a drug, whether it is introduced at the muscle-tendon or intra-articular level.