Table tennis musculoskeletal injuries in young high-level players: a 17-year retrospective cohort study

Table tennis is a racket sport that has been growing in popularity in recent years. The current scientific literature on injuries remains limited. We aimed to assess the incidence and nature of injuries in young table tennis players.

We conducted a 17-year retrospective single-center cohort study in the Department of Sports Medicine at a University Hospital. One hundred and thirty-nine national-level table tennis athletes aged 13.3 ± 2.1 years were studied. The cohort was divided into four groups according to age categories (U11: 8-11 years, U13: 12-13 years, U15: 14-15 years, and U19: 16-19 years). The main outcome measure was the injury rate per season and per athlete.

The injury rate was 1.2 injuries per 1000 hours of exposure and 0.7 injuries per season per athlete. There was no significant difference in injury rate between age categories (P = 0.57). The most frequently injured body parts were knees (30.5%), feet (16.8%), lumbar spine (14.7%), shoulders (12.6%), and groins (10.5%). Seventy-six injuries (82.6%) were overuse injuries. The most common diagnosis was growth-related injuries (40%); these primarily affected the knee (15.8% had Osgood-Schlatter disease and 9.5% had Sinding-Larsen disease), followed by the foot (13.7% had Sever's disease). The next most frequently represented conditions were shoulder tendinopathies (11.6%), chronic low back pain (8.4%), and hip impingement (6.3%).

Most of the injuries were chronic overuse injuries. A thorough understanding of the nature of injuries and their mechanisms of occurrence is essential to improving medical management as well as implementing effective preventive measures.