POCUS enables better medical care of athletes at US Open tennis tournament: Study

USA: An onsite radiology service at the US Open tennis tournament enables sports physicians to provide better medical care for athletes, researchers report in a study published in Skeletal Radiology.

"The addition of an onsite radiology service including point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has given tournament doctors access to a quick and relatively inexpensive tool for quickly evaluating musculoskeletal injuries," Carlos L. Benitez, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA, and colleagues wrote in their study. 

For overseeing the overall health of athletes during competition, including general illnesses and musculoskeletal injury, professional tennis tournaments have onsite sports medicine physicians. The medical team comprises orthopedic and non-operative sports medicine physicians. The tournament doctors frequently require imaging to localize and grade musculoskeletal injuries and make decisions regarding treatment, safe training, and return to match play.

Point-of-care ultrasonography is the most versatile and readily available imaging modality for evaluating the acute musculoskeletal injury, the researchers noted. 

"A dedicated radiology service was created in 2015 at the US Open by bringing in a musculoskeletal radiologist who would perform ultrasounds in a formal and consistent manner," the researchers wrote. "The radiologist was tasked with onsite radiography as well as a review of all MRI examinations done at the imaging center." 

The article by Dr. Benitez and associates describes how this radiology service was implemented, what types of studies were performed and the advantages of having an onsite musculoskeletal radiologist at the tournament. 

They wrote that "This service allowed the medical team to provide the comprehensive and efficient medical care required in a major professional tennis event. Also, it showed the importance of having the in-person expertise of the musculoskeletal radiologist in the sports medicine team. This same model could be applied to other professional sporting events."

Benitez et al identified three main advantages of having POCUS onsite at the US Open: a streamlining of treatment workflow with faster turnaround times, better communication between members of each athlete's medical team and radiologists, and better consistency of radiology reports by ensuring that there was a single person in charge of all imaging modalities. 

Reference:

Benitez, C.L., Daniels, B. & Colvin, A.C. Point-of-care radiology service at the US Open Tennis Championships. Skeletal Radiol (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00256-022-04128-z