EPIDEMIOLOGY OF KNEE INJURIES IN ALPINE S KIING ACTIVITIES

The incidence of sport injuries in Switzerland is twice as high compar ed to traffic injuries. Soccer and alpine skiing play the most importa nt role in sport injuries. For the last twenty winter seasons all wint er sport injuries were analysed at the hospital of Davos. About 85% ar e injuries caused by alpine skiing resulting in a total of 24 684 for the last twenty years. There is a great decline in the incidence of lo wer leg fractures with a contrary development of knee injuries. The tr eatment-quotient (amount of knee injuries in alpine skiers per 10(4) k ilometers of vertical drop skied) has increased over the last seasons. Nowadays one part of four skiing injuries is an injury of the knee li gaments. In skiing areas favored by beginners, we have observed an inc idence of knee ligament injuries three times as high compared to other areas. Since 1986 we have evaluated 206 patients operated for knee li gament injuries, 44% with unidirectional and 56% with multidirectional instabilities. We report about the preoperative datas.