Injury, illness, and medication use surveillance during the 2020 COSAFA Women's championship: a prospective cohort study of football players from Southern Africa.

Background: Systematic analyses of injuries, illnesses or medication use and their risk factors among female African athletes are scarce, which has implications for management of these athletes.

Aim: This prospective cohort study analysed the incidence and characteristics of injuries, illnesses and medication use during the 2020 COSAFA Women's Championship.

Methods: The medical personnel of all participating teams reported all new injuries, illnesses and medication used by players daily.

Application of an approach identifies a genetic locus within and its interactions with to be associated with anterior cruciate ligament rupture risk.

We developed a Biomedical Knowledge Graph model that is phenotype and biological function-aware through integrating knowledge from multiple domains in a Neo4j, graph database. All known human genes were assessed through the model to identify potential new risk genes for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures and Achilles tendinopathy (AT). Genes were prioritised and explored in a case-control study comparing participants with ACL ruptures (ACL-R), including a sub-group with non-contact mechanism injuries (ACL-NON), to uninjured control individuals (CON).

The menstrual cycle and football: The experiences of African women football players.

Background: The menstrual cycle is a normal biological process in women and girls. However, it is often the reason why they tend to be excluded from football medicine research. Consequently, our understanding of the menstrual cycle and football performance is still limited, especially in African women football players.

Exploring new genetic variants within COL5A1 intron 4-exon 5 region and TGF-β family with risk of anterior cruciate ligament ruptures.

Variants within genes encoding structural and regulatory elements of ligaments have been associated with musculoskeletal soft tissue injury risk. The role of intron 4-exon 5 variants within the α1 chain of type V collagen (COL5A1) gene and genes of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) family, TGFBR3 and TGFBI, was investigated on the risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures. A case-control genetic association study was performed on 210 control (CON) and 249 participants with surgically diagnosed ruptures (ACL), of which 147 reported a noncontact mechanism of injury (NON).