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 But the results - calculated from only six cases of so-called
pulmonary embolism in U.S. and European players - need to be
replicated in larger studies, the authors caution.
“We have shown there is limited evidence of higher risk, so more
research is needed,” said lead author Marti Casals of the national
Research Center Network for Epidemiology and Public Health and the
Public Health Agency of Barcelona. “However, our research should
serve to warn the basketball community about the possible risk.”
Casals and his team searched previous studies to compare rates of
pulmonary embolism among men and women players and same-age
counterparts in the general population. The comparison groups were
25- to 34-year-olds in Minnesota and Norway, the only two study
locations where embolism rates in the general population were
available.
The athletes were from two major leagues: the U.S. National
Basketball Association (NBA) and the Basketball Clubs Association (BCA)
in Spain.
The rates of pulmonary embolisms among basketball players translated
to 1.27 per thousand for the NBA and 2.06 per thousand for the BCA,
whereas rates in the general young adult populations of Minnesota
and Norway were 0.1 and 0.018 per thousand, respectively.
Pulmonary embolism, which strikes older people much more than the
young, is most typically a blood clot that has traveled to the lungs
from the leg. Symptoms of pulmonary embolism include difficulty
breathing, chest pain, irregular heartbeat, coughing and coughing up
blood, the authors note in the journal Medicine and Science in
Sports and Exercise.
Immobility, surgery and cancer can increase the risk of pulmonary
embolism, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Preventiohn.
“Professional athletes are exposed to high levels of effort which
may result in a process of chronic inflammation, to repeated
injuries, frequent air travel (economy-class syndrome) and the
subsequent immobility, to novel treatments of injuries such as
platelet-rich plasma and a whole series of additional circumstances
that when combined may point out professional basketball as a
special population at risk,” Casals told Reuters Health by email.
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Casals and his team note the embolism rate could be even higher than
what they found, if the number of cases is under-reported.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold, a lung doctor at Oregon Health & Science
University, called the study “very provocative.”
“Just off the cuff, if asked would athletes be at higher risk, given
the number who have knee and leg injuries, I would not have been
surprised,” said Gold, who was not involved in the study. “However,
that it appears to uniquely affect basketball players is a bit
unusual.
But, having more people in the comparison groups could help “to see
if it is truly basketball players or is height (or in some studies,
leg length) truly the main factor,” Gold told Reuters Health by
email.
“Where this is really interesting is that there are data, at least
in males, that height (being taller) is associated with an increased
risk of pulmonary embolism, as well, so it all fits,” he added.
Gold noted that smoking and possibly oral contraceptives, trauma or
surgery might all be risk factors for pulmonary embolism.
“It’s important to make sure that if players have surgery,
especially on legs, where they won’t be up walking around
afterwards, that using blood thinners may be warranted,” Gold said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1XCsKM6 Medicine and Science in Sports and
Exercise, online October 2, 2015.
(This story has been refiled to correct the rates for healthy Minn.
and Norway cohorts in paragraph 6)
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