An Overview of the Most Prevalent Knee Injuries among Athletes: a Systematic Review

The present study aimed to investigate the scientific results of the studies on the strategies and exercises applicable to knee abnormalities, provide a convenient conclusion, and offer more comprehensive information so that researchers may have easier access to the related literature.

Several databases, including ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Scopus, Sport Discus, and PubMed, were searched from 1980 to 2022. The implemented keywords included knee injury, knee dislocation, anterior cruciate ligament injuries, medial collateral ligament, and return to sport.

After applying the entry and exclusion criteria, a total of 534 articles were investigated, out of which the systematic reviews, the repeated ones, and the articles that could not fulfill the entry criteria of the study were eliminated, and, finally, 33 studies were selected. The findings showed that the highest rate of injuries occurred in football (38%) , basketball (13%) , and volleyball (15%) , respectively. Moreover, ACL was the most prevalent injury (around 64%) to ligaments, while injuries to MCL ranked second.

The present study showed that the majority of knee injuries involved injuries to knee ligaments and typically took place due to running or jumping on rigid surfaces or experiencing severe blows. It was hard to conveniently summate the reports and make practical conclusions according to them due to their varying methods of reporting. Thus, future studies are recommended to homogenize the characteristics.