The New York Times is a great source of sports medicine news and Gina Kolata‘s article about inappropriate use of MR requires little editorializing.

My feeling is that although some doctors diagnose by MR instead of via cognitive processes, that is NOT the problem in sports and exercise medicine. See Chris Milne’s recent lucid description of what happens in the sports medicine setting. However, we are in a phase where PATIENTS are DEMANDING MRs — as this article highlights toward the end.

So the next implementation/knowledge translation challenge is to education patients to value a careful history and physical exam. That won’t be easy in a time where technology is valued – at times to excess.

Don’t forget the BJSM podcasts on imaging – with a particular emphasis on ultrasound’s increasing relevance in the clinic and on the sideline. For those clinicians looking at ways of training in US – click on the podcast with Sean Martin and Kim Harmon from AMSSM.

BJSM priortizes ‘hot topics’ such as sports imaging, US in imaging. You can sign up for free Table of Contents (TOC) via email and over 2000 folks follow us on Twitter (@BJSM_BMJ) where we post alerts to this blog and other useful sport and exercise medicine links.

Have an active weekend and remember that low fitness kills more Americans than smoking, diabetes, and obesity combined (smokadiabesity). If you have any trouble accessing the paper there see also the blog post.

A commonly overlooked diagnosis of lateral hip pain is gluteal tendinopathy. The relative emphasis on ‘trochanteric bursitis’ compared with tendinopathy is likely reversed. The tendinopathy is much more prevalent that the ‘bursitis’ according to MR studies of the regions.

At surgery for total hip arthroplasty, surgeons often find major tears in the gluteus medius (Bunker and colleagues, 1997, among others). More recent MR studies have highlighted this pathology.

Have you ever wondered why ‘strengthening exercises’ are helpful in treatment of  lateral hip pain? This would be counterintuitive for a ‘bursitis’ but perfectly logical for a tendinopathy.

The take home message: Please consider gluteal tendinopathy in the patient who presents with lateral hip pain. It occurs across the ages – from the active sports person to the older person in whom it can be mistakenly diagnosed as ‘hip OA’!  Wouldn’t it be terrible if someone were to undergo hip joint replacement for a tendinopathy.

For further discussion of lateral hip pain and groin pain, consider the link here.

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Age-limited spot has long been limited by the veracity of birth certificates but MR imaging appears to provide a safe, reliable way of levelling the playing field. This blog post contains an article from the African press providing the background, MR images of a young, and mature, wrist, and a photo of the team that has provided the science that underpins this new policy.

Fifa’s Age-Check Technology Can End This Charade

All Africa, 02 Sep 2009

You have to imagine that several soccer bosses across the continent wet themselves senseless after football governing body Fifa announced this week that new technological advancements would make it possible to determine the ages of players who will be taking part at the Under-17 Soccer World Cup in Nigeria next month.

Tests will be conducted on players from the 24 competing nations with a new bone magnetic resonance imaging scanner that will accurately determine their ages. This bit of news should have been enough to make many stomachs turn, and several teams will no doubt suddenly undergo major personnel changes in the weeks before the start of the October 24-November 15 junior tournament. Read full article…

Related Articles:

Is MRI the beginning of wisdom for NFF? (234next.com)

Coach claims age cheating rampant in Cecafa U-17 (nation.co.ke)

Nigeria: ‘Probe Under-17 Team Age Scandal’ – I Warned The Country Against Age Cheat – Adamu

(www.allafrica.com)

NFF To Dare FIFA On Bone Test Policy (thisdayonline.com)

At Last NFF Admits 15 Failed MRI Test (234next.com)