【論文摘要】The Changes of Ulnar Collateral Ligament Thickness After a Season in the Baseball Players: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

【論文摘要】棒球選手在單一賽季前後之尺側副韌帶厚度變化：系統性回顧與統合分析

林昱均(Yu-Chun Lin) ； 周彥菱(Yen-Ling Chou) ； 劉文瑜(Wen-Yu Liu) ； 陳柏村(Po-Tsun Chen)

《物理治療》 47卷4期 (2022/12) Pp. 323-324

https://doi.org/10.6215/FJPT.202212.P38

摘要

Background and Purpose: Medial elbow pain is a common injury in the baseball players, which may be caused by the increased valgus stress on the elbow. The amount of external rotation of shoulder and flexion of elbow during late-cocking phase is considered to determine the valgus stress. The repetitive stress may contribute to the morphological alterations of ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) after series of practice. This review aims to investigate the changes in the UCL thickness in baseball players after a season. Methods: Search was performed by using PubMed, Medline and Scopus based on the keywords of Baseball players, Pitchers, Ulnar collateral ligament, Elbow medial collateral ligament, Season, Ultrasound, Dynamic ultrasound, and Sonography and the published date until April 2022. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist was used to assess the quality of studies. Meta-analysis was performed by using Review Manager software (version 5.4). The effects were summarized with standardized mean differences (95% confidence intervals) by random effect models. A significant level was set at 0.05. Results: Four studies were recruited, including a total of 52 subjects (22 high school pitchers and 30 collegiate pitchers). Those studies reported that UCL thickness was significantly increased after a season. However, the meta-analysis did not show the significance in total effect size for UCL thickness (p = 0.09; -1.59 [95% CI = -3.44, 0.26]) with high heterogeneity (p = ＜ 0.00001; I^2 = 93%). The study quality ranged from 9 to 11 by CASP scale. Conclusions: The current results are unable to show the significance, which may be due to the pitchers from different levels with varied tendon thickness and the insufficient studies addressed this issue. The biomechanical factors which impose stress on UCL during throwing should be identified to prevent the further injures. Clinical Relevance: Adequate recovery strategy should be administrated to reduce the stress on UCL and to restore the adaptive changes.