Acute calcaneal tendon injury - Degenerative change and epidemiological study

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the percent of patients which have previous Achilles tendon diseases before it tears. What’s the profile of these patients? Overweight? Athletic or sedentary? With or without corticoid use before tear? What’s their age? Methods: Between 1996 and 2006, we made biopsy of the sick tendon in 77 patients, searching for previous degenerative process. All the patients were undergone to physical examination and to a questionnaire for future data analysis. Results: Our cases were 71 men and six women, with an average age of 41.9 years old, being the left ankle the most affected (58.5%). The Body Mass Index (BMI) was found overthan 25 in 74%. Among our cases, 94.85% presented posterior contralateral thigh muscle shortening. No cases previously presented: use of antibiotics like quinolones, rheumatic diseases or local infiltration with corticosteroids Pathologic analysis showed chronic tendon degeneration in 81.8%, and rupture level was frequently between 3 and 6 cm of Achilles tendon insertion (71.4%). Conclusions: Chronic tendon degeneration is a predictive factor of acute Achilles tendon ruptures, mainly in male patients, with an average age of 40 years old. These patients practice sports at least twice times a week and showed an isquiotibial muscle shortening associated with overweight (BMI>25).