Epidemiological profile of patients diagnosed with athletic pubalgia()

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of pubalgia in patients from a Sports Medicine Center. METHODS: Data analysis from medical records of patients with athletic pubalgia attended to from January 2007 to January 2015. The diagnosis was made by an experienced hip surgeon, complemented with pelvic X-ray, abdominal wall ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging of the pelvis. RESULTS: Among 43 patients, 42 were men, with mean age of 33 years. As for sports, 25 (58.1%) athletes were soccer players and 13 (30.2%) were runners; 37.2% were professional athletes. Inguinal hernia was diagnosed in 20.9% of patients, showing the importance of its routine search in these patients. Treatment duration ranged from 1 to 12 months and 95.2% of the patients returned to sport. CONCLUSION: This study presented the epidemiological characteristics of patients diagnosed with athletic pubalgia attended to in a reference medical center and demonstrated the prevalence of this lesion in male patients, soccer players and runners. It also disclosed a high success rate of the nonoperative treatment, and high rate of return to sport after treatment.