Atanasio, S

Fusco, C

Negrini, S

Taiana, M

Zaina, F

Scoliosis

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Scoliosis
Open AccessOral presentation
Adolescent soccer is correlated with an increase of kyphosis but a 
reduction of low back pain: a controlled cross-sectional survey
S Negrini*, F Zaina, S Atanasio, C Fusco and M Taiana
Address: ISICO (Italian Scientific Spine Institute), Via Roberto Bellarmino 13/1, 20141 Milan, Italy
Email: S Negrini* - stefano.negrini@isico.it
* Corresponding author    
Objectives
To verify the relationship between LBP and posture in
adolescent soccer players.
Background
In both adults and children a correlation has been shown
between sports participation and low back pain (LBP). A
long debate exists regarding the possible influence of
sports participation on spinal growth in children. Soccer
is a very popular sport played by many children world-
wide.
Methods
We performed a clinical evaluation on 102 males age 11-
16 who played competitive soccer two to three times per
week. We compared them to a normal sample of 180 boys
of the same age range who did not play soccer. In addi-
tion, we proposed a validated questionnaire on LBP prev-
alence and clinical characteristics that were compared to a
normal sample of 668 schoolboys. The validated meas-
urements we collected were plumbline distances from
kyphosis apex (C7, T12 and L3) and ATR according to the
Bunnell method. We calculated the Sagittal Index (SI: sum
of the distances of C7 and L3), and the Sagittal Ratio (SR:
C7/L3 - relationship between kyphosis and lordosis).
According to previous studies, we considered the follow-
ing to be normal references: ATR of less than 5°, Sagittal
Index of 1.5-5.5 cm (C7), 2.8-7.0 cm (L3) 5.5-11.0 cm,
and Sagittal Ratio of 0.37-1.31. Our analysis used normal-
ity tests, ANOVA and chi-square; the Kruskall Wallis test
for non parametric data was also applied.
Results
We found statistically significant increases of the plumb-
line distances from kyphosis apex in C7 (36.6 ± 1.0 vs
33.6 ± 0.7) and T12 (23.0 ± 0.6 vs 21.3 ± 0.8) as well as
an increase of SR (0.80 ± 0.03 vs 0.73 ± 0.02). We did not
find more pathological cases in soccer players than in nor-
mals for any of the parameters we evaluated. When com-
pared to normals, soccer players had a statistically
significant reduction in most of the LBP parameters.
Among LBP sufferers, the intensity of LBP was similar in
the two populations.
Conclusion
Apparently, adolescent soccer players have less LBP than
controls, while they have a group a tendency to have
increased kyphosis, with an unbalance between the two
sagittal curves in favor of kyphosis (ie, an increase in the
Sagittal Ratio). Even if these changes were statistically sig-
nificant, they were not clinically significant. We did not
find an increase in pathology (spinal deformities), but
this population may have been too small to detect these
variations.
from 6th International Conference on Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities
Lyon, France. 21-23 May 2009
Published: 14 December 2009
Scoliosis 2009, 4(Suppl 2):O3 doi:10.1186/1748-7161-4-S2-O3
<supplement> <title> <p>6th International Conference on Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities</p> </title> <editor>Jean Claude de Mauroy, Theodoros Grivas, Patrick Knott and David Tager</editor> <note>A single PDF containing all abstracts in this Supplement is available <a href="http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/files/pdf/1748-7161-4-S2-full.pdf">here</a>.</note> </supplement>
This abstract is available from: http://www.scoliosisjournal.com/content/4/S2/O3
© 2009 Negrini et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 


Adolescent soccer is correlated with an increase of kyphosis but a reduction of low back pain: a controlled cross-sectional survey

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Adolescent soccer is correlated with an increase of kyphosis but a reduction of low back pain: a controlled cross-sectional survey

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