Copyright
©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Epidemiology and injury patterns of aerial sports in Switzerland
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, J Turner Vosseller, Aristomenis K Exadaktylos, Carsten Perka, Lorin Michael Benneker, Fabian Götz Krause, Moritz Caspar Deml
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, Lorin Michael Benneker, Fabian Götz Krause, Moritz Caspar Deml, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, University Bern, Bern 3010, Switzerland
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, J Turner Vosseller, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, United States
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, Carsten Perka, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, University Hospital Berlin, Charité Berlin, Berlin, 10117, Germany
Aristomenis K Exadaktylos, Department of Emergency Medicine, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, University Bern, Bern, 3010, Switzerland
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Institutional review board statement: Approval obtained from the local ethic board Bern.
Informed consent statement: A waiver was obtained as this was a retrospective trial.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have nothing to disclose related to this work.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available as the consent was not obtained.
STROBE statement: The guidelines of the STROBE Statement have been adopted.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Henrik Constantin Bäcker, MD, Doctor, Postdoctoral Fellow, Surgeon, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Inselspital Bern, University Hospital Bern, University Bern, Freiburgstrasse 8, Bern 3010, Switzerland. henrik.baecker@sports-med.org
Received: October 3, 2019
Peer-review started: October 3, 2019
First decision: October 13, 2019
Revised: October 15, 2019
Accepted: November 28, 2019
Article in press: November 28, 2019
Published online: February 18, 2020
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Airborne sports are becoming more popular in recent years especially in Switzerland due to its landscape.
Research motivation
The number of accidents has increased linearly with the increased popularity as athletes take increasingly greater risks to experience the adventurous spirit of the sport. To assess potential changes in injury patterns over the years due to different trends and changes sports men mentalities.
Research objectives
Our purpose was to investigate the variety of injuries in airborne sport accidents, as well as what acute treatment these patients receive, both before and after admission to a trauma center.
Research methods
We performed a retrospective chart analysis at a major level-one-trauma center in Switzerland for patients who were admitted due to airborne injury between 2010 and 2017.
Research results
A total of 237-patients were admitted to our center, having suffered an airborne sport accident. Two patients were excluded as they were a readmission from a previous injury. Overall, 718-injuries in 235-patients were identified; the spine was the most commonly affected region with 46.5% of injuries (n = 334/718) in 143-patients. In 69-patients (15.5%) the (non-spine) thorax was affected, followed by the lower and upper extremity, pelvis, head/face and abdominal injuries. Eleven patients had to be intubated at the trauma site, three patients were resuscitated after onset of pulseless-electrical-activity. Two-patients died in the resuscitation room. In 116-cases, surgery was indicated including 55 emergency surgeries. Other 19-patients (8.1%) were transferred to the intensive care unit.
Research conclusions
There is a high potential for serious and sometimes life-threatening injuries in airborne sports. Contrary to the current literature, the spine was the most commonly affected body region in our cohort and not lower extremities as cited before.
Research perspectives
Athletes, as well as first responders and ultimately the treating physicians, must be aware of the risk for potentially serious injury.
