Return to Play in Asthma and Pulmonary Conditions

In football (soccer), an athlete’s cardiopulmonary system consistently operates in a sinusoidal manner with numerous episodes of low- and high-intensity surges. This demand requires an athlete to have the most ideal function to perform at a high level. Multiple pulmonary processes can influence an athlete’s ability to perform by interfering with the pulmonary system’s primary function of ventilation and perfusion to try to optimize gas exchange. In this chapter, we will discuss some of the more common pathology that can affect this delicate balance. Some of the more common, but important, conditions such as asthma, exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB), pneumothorax, and pulmonary infections will be addressed, as each are readily seen, by sports medicine teams, caring for the football players. The discussion will begin with how those conditions are diagnosed through history and advanced testing and will be followed by treatment with environmental trigger modification, pharmacologic interventions, and lastly return to play criteria.