Groin pain in athletes and non-interventional rehabilitative treatment: a systematic review

Groin pain is a common complaint both in high-performance and recreational athletes. Diagnosis is based on the patient's history and physical examination. Imaging assessments are often considered to exclude other pathologies. To date there is no strong evidence to support conservative or surgical treatment options. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the more effective non-interventional rehabilitative treatments for the management of groin pain in athletes and, if possible, provide guidelines useful for clinical practice.

The following electronic databases were searched: PubMed, Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), Scopus, Web of Science, Google and Google Scholar. Databases were investigated from January 1997 until March 2017.

The results reported in the randomized clinical trial studies highlight that active treatment is better than passive treatment to improve clinical signs of groin pain. Comparing the active strategy with multi-modal treatment the latter allows a faster return to sport activity. Although the evidence remains poor, all the included literature highlights that an integrated strategy which combines active and passive treatment, the assessment of perceived pain, a return to running program and specific-sport exercises is an effective strategy for management of groin pain in athletes.

Although we shed some light on common key aspects able to improve the typical signs of groin pain, on the basis of available data we were unable to provide practice guidelines. Further studies are necessary to set the best treatment algorithm for the management of groin pain in athletes.