Sciatic nerve involvement is associated with longer return to sport in collegiate American football players with acute hamstring injuries

Key Points

1. Sciatic Nerve involvement after hamstring injury is defined as edema surrounding the nerve and can extend the return to sport timeline.

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BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

Hamstring injuries are the most common lower extremity injury in professional American football and a leading cause of time loss due to injury in international football as well (1). MRI is frequently used in high-stakes college and professional sports to assess hamstring injuries (2). Research using advanced imaging can help to provide clinical takeaways that practitioners with fewer resources are still able to put into practice.

Hamstring injuries (HSIs) and their associated edema have potential to cause irritation to the Sciatic Nerve (SN) due to their anatomical proximity, although the severity and prevalence of this presentation is not well understood (3,4). The authors of this paper utilized MRI to ask the question of whether SN involvement and the British Athletics Muscle Injury Classification (BAMIC) grade were correlated with longer return to sport (RTS) in NCAA Division 1 American Football players.

Hamstring injuries are the most common lower extremity injury in professional American football and a leading cause of time loss due to injury in international football as well.

If SN involvement is suspected, clinicians should be mindful to select exercises and interventions that do not add compression, tension or irritation to the SN and monitor for SN symptoms throughout the rehabilitation process.

METHODS

• The authors performed a secondary analysis of hamstring injury data (n= 96) using the BAMIC system.

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