Mapping Lacrosse Injury and Sports Medicine Research
Lillian Bosh1, Sidhartha Ramlatchan2, Omar Viswanath3
1Olympia HS.
Background:
Lacrosse research spans orthopedic injury, concussion, prevention, and sports science. This study characterized publication, citation, and collaboration patterns in a search-defined literature.
Methods:
Web of Science records exported on July 22, 2026, were analyzed. Of 458 unique retrieved records, 24 clearly out-of-scope records were excluded. The primary corpus required lacrosse in the title, abstract, or author keywords, yielding 388 records. A broader 434-record corpus included additional records linked only through Keywords Plus. Indicators were recalculated from the full-record export.
Results:
The primary corpus spanned 1987-2026, contained 141 source-title labels, and accumulated 14,987 citations (mean, 38.63; h-index, 61). Of the records, 235 (60.6%) were dated 2017-2026; 2026 was incomplete. American Journal of Sports Medicine and Journal of Athletic Training each contributed 44 records. Sport Sciences and Orthopedics were assigned to 275 (70.9%) and 120 (30.9%) records, respectively. An explicit USA address label occurred in 343 records (88.4%). Injury, concussion, and epidemiology were the most frequent normalized keywords. The broader sensitivity analysis retained concussion and epidemiology among its leading terms.
Conclusions:
This literature connects lacrosse injury research with broader sports medicine and is concentrated in US-affiliated publications. Concussion and epidemiology are prominent, but bibliometric patterns do not establish clinical evidence quality or quantify treatment-related research gaps.
