Attitudes and Dispositions toward Doping in Adolescent Elite Athletes / 대한스포츠의학회지

For effective prevention of doping, individual and situational factors that make an elite athlete more susceptible to doping than others should be investigated. The aim of this study was to quantitatively measure doping related attitudes and dispositions of adolescent competitive athletes at elite level. Data were collected by questionnaires among athletes (n=123) who were participating in the 2nd Asian Youth Games. Outcome measures included doping knowledge, behavior and attitude (performance enhancement attitude scale, PEAS). One athlete admitted the past use of doping and 2 athletes reported that they knew others who had doped. Athletes were mainly provided with anti-doping information from anti-doping agency (16.3%), coaches (11.4%) or medical staffs (10.6%). The average PEAS score was 38.39+/-11.36. High school (elder) athletes showed higher PEAS score (39.63+/-11.35) than middle school (younger) athletes (34.53+/-10.67) and team sport athletes showed lower PEAS score (35.11+/-9.80) than athletes in endurance (45.08+/-15.49) or motor skill sports (43.25+/-9.08). This study suggests that many factors play an important role in athlete's decisions regarding the use of doping. Further research should incorporate these factors to understand the complexity of doping and to identify points for effective anti-doping program.

Ethical Awareness and Concerns of Sport Practitioners for the Summer Olympic Games 2012 / 대한스포츠의학회지

The healthcare for elite athletes has the potential to create many ethical issues for sports practitioners. And the relationship between a sports practitioner and an athlete differs significantly from the traditional doctor-patient relationship. However, there has been little discussion of them to date. To investigate the ethical awareness and concerns in sports medicine field, we surveyed the responses of Korean medical team to a questionnaire during the Summer Olympic Games 2012. The questionnaire was developed to access a wide-range of common ethical issues in sports medicine; conflict of interests, confidentiality, pediatric athletes, performance-enhancing substances, infectious disease, innovative therapies, medical advertising. Twenty-nine out of 32 sports practitioners responded to the questionnaire (90.6%). Respondents identified many ethical matters concerning the unique characteristics of athletes-as-patients in sports medicine. This study has started the process of identifying contemporary ethical problems with regard to the sports medicine, and there should be further studies dealing with these problems.

Sports Injury Surveillance during Summer Asian Games 2010 in Guangzhou / 대한스포츠의학회지

The purpose of this study was to do the surveillance study of sports injuries which were suffered to National players of South Korea Team during the summer Asian Games 2010 in Guangzhou. All medical staffs of Korea Delegation were asked to report all sports injuries newly incurred during the Games on injury report form, and the physicians made clinical diagnoses of the injuries. Total 725 injuries (430 athletes) were reported, and 288 injuries (209 athletes) were newly incurred: 68 injuries (58 athletes) were recurrent with previous history, resulting in total incidence rate: 45.5 injuries/1000 athlete exposures (AE) (95% confidence interval [CI]: 40.1-50.6 injuries/1000 AE) and incidence proportion: 26% (95% CI: 23-29). The new injury was highest in athletics (n=37, 12.8%), hockey (n=26, 9.0%), and basketball (n=23, 8.0%). While 162 injuries (56.2%) were incurred during practice, 126 injuries (43.8%) were incurred in competition. The most frequent diagnoses were lateral ankle ligament sprain (n=28, 9.7%, 95% CI: 6.3-13.1), calf muscle cramp (n=23, 95% CI: 4.9-11.1), and hamstring strain (n=22, 95% CI: 4.6-10.7). The relapsed injury was highest in athletics (n=16, 23.5%), basketball (n=6, 8.8%), and wrestling (n=5, 7.4%). While 50 injuries (73.5%) were recurred during practice, 18 injuries (26.5%) were recurred in competition. The most frequent diagnoses of relapsed injury were calf muscle cramp (n=11, 16.2%, 95% CI: 7.4-25.0), low back strain (n=6, 8.8%, 95% CI: 2.1-15.6), and hamstring strain (n=6, 8.8%, 95% CI: 2.1-15.6). Our data indicated incidence rates, incidence proportions, characteristics and frequent diagnoses of acute and recurrent sports injuries during the games, therefore these results could provide relevant information for the sports injury prevention at elite level.

Protein Expression Profile of Synovial Fibroblasts in Experimental Post-traumatic Arthritis

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and compare protein expression profiles of synovial fibroblasts using proteome analysis in swine knee injuries with joint instability, during early post-traumatic arthritis (PTA) development. METHOD: Experimental PTA was induced by transection of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in swine left knee joints. After sacrifice at 8 weeks, cartilage and synovium obtained from both knee joints were prepared for histopathologic examination. Cultured synovial fibroblasts were processed for 2-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometric analysis. Histopathologic examination showed overt arthritic changes that supported the development of early PTA. RESULTS: Proteome analyses led to the identification of more than 1,500 protein spots and of 11 differently expressed protein spots. Of those, six proteins were down-regulated (cytoskeletal beta actin, cofilin-1, destrin, Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor alpha, and unnamed protein product), and five proteins were up-regulated (alpha-B crystallin, smooth muscle protein 22-alpha, and cytoskeletal beta actin) in ACL-transected synovial fibroblasts. That is, proteins related to cellular organization and signal transduction are down-regulated, and those related to cell rescue, defence, and stress are up-regulated. CONCLUSION: These results may suggest that joint instability contributes to the development of PTA and is one of the major etiologic factors of PTA. In addition, this suggests that the proteome analysis of synovial fibroblasts is a useful approach in examining a joint after an injury and can be used to understand the pathogenesis of PTA.