Sports Injuries among professional male athletes in Kuwait: prevalence and associated factors

To assess a 12-month period and the lifetime prevalence of sports injuries among male athletes according to type of sport, type of injury and its seriousness, and to examine the association of injuries with sociodemographic, lifestyle and preventive factors. In this cross-sectional study, we approached 475 professional athletes participating in ball sports, aged 15 years and older, from 5 sports clubs in Kuwait. Of them, 452 responded. Four ball games - football [soccer], basketball, handball and volleyball - were included. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariate relationships between associated factors and experience of injury were tested by using chi[2] and logistic regression. The overall 12-month and lifetime prevalence of sports injuries were 73.8 and 89.8%, respectively. Prevalence was highest among volleyball athletes [79%] and lowest among football [soccer] athletes [69%]. Lower limbs [73.1%] were the most common site of injuries and joint injuries [43.6%] were the most common type. For the most recent injury, 138 [42%] of athletes took more than 10 days off practice. Compared to volleyball, football [soccer] and handball athletes were 2.9 times [95% CI: 1.3-6.3] and 3.4 times [95% CI: 1.5-7.8] more likely to take more than 10 days off practice. Athletes who sometimes wore protective gears were 3.1 times [95% CI: 1.7-5.8] more likely to report an injury compared with those who never wore protective gears [p < 0.001]. Sports injuries are highly prevalent among professional athletes in Kuwait. Future studies are needed to provide guidelines for interventions that may reduce such injuries

Vaccine immunotherapy for a deadly disease like malignant melanoma: where do we stand?

The incidence of cancer and its related morbidity and mortality remain on the increase in both developing and developed countries. Cancer remains a huge burden on the health and social welfare sectors worldwide and its prevention and cure remain two golden goals that science strives to achieve. Among the treatment options for cancer that have emerged in the past one hundred years, cancer vaccine immunotherapy seems to present a promising and relatively safer approach as compared to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The identification of different tumor antigens in the last fifteen years using a variety of techniques, together with the molecular cloning of cytotoxic T lymphocytes [CTLs]-and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes [TILs]-defined tumor antigens allowed more refining of the cancer vaccines that are currently used in different clinical trials. In a proportion of treated patients, some of these vaccines have resulted in partial or complete tumor regression, while they have increased the disease-free survival rate in others. These outcomes a re more evident now in patients suffering fro m melanoma. This review provides an update on melanoma vaccine immunotherapy. Different cancer antigens are reviewed with a detailed description of the melanoma antigens discovered so far. The review also summarizes clinical trials and individual clinical cases in which some of the old and current methods to vaccinate against or treat melanoma were used. These include vaccines made of autologous or allogenic melanoma tumor cells, melanoma peptides, recombinant bacterial or viral vectors, or dendritic cells