KNEE INJURIES IN WOMEN COLLEGIATE RUGBY PLAYERS

We evaluated the prevalence and patterns of knee injuries in 810 women collegiate rugby players. Injuries that resulted in players missing a t least one game were recorded and a questionnaire was used to delinea te players' rugby and knee injury history. There were 76 total knee in juries in 58,296 exposures. This resulted in a 1.3 knee injury rate pe r 1000 exposures. Twenty-one anterior cruciate ligament tears were rep orted for a 0.36 incidence per 1000 exposures. Other injuries included meniscal tears (25), medial collateral ligament sprains (23), patella r dislocations (5), and posterior cruciate ligament tears (2). Sixty-o ne percent of the medial collateral ligament sprains occurred in rugby forwards and 67% of anterior cruciate ligament tears occurred in rugb y backs. All other injuries occurred with equal frequency in backs and forwards. This study demonstrates that knee injury rates in women's c ollegiate rugby are similar to those reported for other women's colleg iate sports. The overall rate of anterior cruciate ligament injury in women's rugby, however, is slightly higher than that reported for wome n soccer and basketball players.