Hallux Sesamoid Injury Characteristics in Young Athletes Presented to the Sports Medicine Clinic.

Objective To investigate clinical diagnoses, sports participation, and return to sport timeline associated with hallux sesamoid injuries with sex comparisons. Design Descriptive epidemiology study. Setting Sports medicine clinics at a tertiary-level pediatric medical center. Patients Six hundred eighty-three young athletes (546 women and 137 men). Independent variables Sex (women vs men). Main outcome measures Clinical diagnoses, participating sports, and injury timeline. Results The most common diagnosis was sesamoiditis (62.6%). The top 3 primary sports were dance (34.6%), running (13.7%), and soccer (11.7%). When stratified by sex, dance (40.1%), running (13.6%), and soccer (10.7%) were the top primary sports for women while running (19.4%), soccer (18.5%), and basketball (11.3%) were the leading diagnoses for male athletes. The mean time between injury occurrence and first clinic visit was 135.5 ± 229.3 days. The mean time between the first clinic visit and return to sport was 104.3 ± 128.2 days. Comparison by sex showed that women had a longer mean time than men (women: 111.5 ± 132.5 days, men: 67.2 ± 96.3 days, P = 0.001). The mean time from injury occurrence to return to sport was 235.2 ± 281.0 days. Women showed a longer mean timeline for return to sport compared with men (women: 245.2 ± 288.2 days, men: 179.3 ± 231.9 days, P = 0.014). Conclusion Sesamoiditis was the most common diagnosis, and dance, running, and soccer were top 3 sports. The most salient finding was that women taking almost twice as long to return the sport or activity compared with men, which likely stems from delay of reporting symptom onset to clinics.