GE Healthcare and the NBA are partnering to focus on bone stress injuries, issuing a call for proposals for research studies investigating the issue.
The NBA and GE Healthcare Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Collaboration was established to fund research that addresses the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries. The collaboration aims to increase the understanding of the mechanisms of injury to reduce the effects of future injuries by investigating prevention and rehabilitation programs, as well as by developing new and improved tools for diagnosis and treatment, the group said.
The latest call for research proposals is aimed at the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery of bone stress injuries. Specific areas of research interest besides prevention include advancements in imaging.
Research proposals are being accepted here. The total award will be up to $1.5 million over a three-year period. The maximum amount for an individual submission is $300,000, including direct and indirect costs for the entire research period. The submission deadline is April 17.
The collaboration also announced the latest winning research proposals that address myotendinous injuries, specifically targeting strains, tears, ruptures, or pulls of the hamstring and calf. There were four winning research proposals that address acute myotendinous injuries:
- University of Newcastle, Australia (Dr. Suzi Edwards): "The HAMI study: Investigating hamstring and adductor myotendinous injury risk factors in basketball." Edwards and her team will study Australian basketball players to determine the role of biomechanical and neural factors in muscle injuries.
- Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam (Dr. Johannes Tol): "Game-changing innovative sports research: The basketball and muscle injury (BAMI) study." The BAMI study will look at how to prevent hamstring and calf muscle injuries and reinjuries. In the first of three separate studies, researchers will use MRI to examine what goes on within injured muscles. The second and third studies will use strength testing and MRI to determine which exercises are best for preventing hamstring and calf muscle injuries.
- University of Wisconsin-Madison (Dr. Bryan Heiderscheit): "Clinical, biomechanical, and novel imaging biomarkers of hamstring strain injury potential in elite athletes." Heiderscheit and his team will conduct a prospective, longitudinal study to improve risk assessment for hamstring strain injuries. Athletes will be monitored for exposure and injury throughout training and competition. Injured athletes will be monitored with diffusion-tensor MR and shear-wave ultrasound imaging during and after their rehabilitation period.
- The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN (Dr. Timothy Hewett): "Comparative effectiveness of hamstring muscle strain injury prevention programs." Hewett and colleagues will investigate the effectiveness of hamstring muscle strain injury prevention programs in 1,000 high school basketball athletes. They plan to study how these programs affect flexibility, muscle stiffness, strength, and power. They will use shear-wave elastography to measure muscle stiffness and determine if it can be used to predict future hamstring injuries.
