Injuries and time loss in elite judo athletes: a Korean prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Few epidemiological studies have investigated pain and time loss due to sports injury. We analyzed the specific patterns of injury among Korean elite judo athletes and examined the effects of pain on time loss. We also assessed the association between the type of injury and time loss. METHODS: We prospectively collected data on elite judo athletes at the Korean Training Center for the year 2019. The athletes were assessed by sports medicine doctors, and data were stratified according to sex, weight class, and injury location. We used χ2 tests to compare groups. Injury rates were expressed as Poisson rates with 95% confidence intervals. One-way analysis of variance was used to investigate the pain scores and time losses due to sports injury. RESULTS: The study included 232 athletes whose 606 injuries (annual average, 2.61 injuries/athlete) were recorded. Female athletes had higher injury rates than male athletes. Overall, most injuries occurred in the lower extremities (38.12%), followed by the upper extremities (36.80%), trunk (17.66%), and head and neck area (7.43%). Injury severity significantly differed according to the body regions in the weight classes. The pain score and time loss differed significantly according to the type of injury. When the pain score increased by 1, the time loss increased by approximately 1.47 days. CONCLUSIONS: Among all weight classes, female athletes had a higher injury rate than male athletes. The pain score and time loss varied depending on the type of injury, with pain score being associated with time loss.

Mechanotechnical faults and particular issues of anastomotic complications following robot-assisted anterior resection in 968 rectal cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: As most risk factors for anastomotic complications (AC) in rectal cancer patients appear to be noncorrectable, it is needed to find the correctable causes. Additionally, the outcomes of indocyanine-green fluorescence imaging (IFI) and robot-stapled anastomosis have yet been undetermined. METHODS: This study retrospectively analyzed 968 consecutive patients with rectal cancer, who underwent curative robot-assisted anterior resections between 2010 and 2018. IFI parameters and stapling features in the surgical records were reviewed, and reconfirmed. RESULTS: AC occurred in 54 patients (5.6%), 34 (3.5%) with anastomotic leakage (AL) and 24 (2.5%) with anastomotic stenosis (AS). Mechanotechnical faults including defective stapling configurations, including angles lesser than or equal to 150° and outer deviation (more than half from the center of the circle) of linear staples, between the two linear staples were independently associated with AL (P < .001 each). IFI significantly reduced AL rate (2.5% vs 5.3%, P = .029) and AS rate (2% vs 18.8%, P = .006), respectively. Robot linear stapling enabled to maintain the obtuse angle during consecutive staplings and reduced console time. AL and AS were independent risk factors for disease-free survival (P = .02) and local recurrence (P = .03), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: AC were associated with some correctable causes, namely, mechanotechnical errors and lack of use of IFI.