Semimembranosus Muscle Injuries In Sport. A Practical MRI use for Prognosis

Hamstring strain injuries are one of the most common injuries in team sports that involve running, especially soccer, Australian football, rugby and field hockey (30–40 %) [9, 19]. As such, hamstring strain injuries are a common area of investigation in sports medicine with goals of reducing the incidence but also the time away from sport following an injury. The majority of research to date has focused on injury to the long head of the biceps femoris, deservedly so given its high prevalence [3, 9, 17]. While less frequent, semimembranosus (SM) injuries can be more challenging to treat and have been found to require greater recovery time before returning to full sport participation [2, 4, 16]. However, others have suggested that SM injuries have a better prognosis than injuries to other hamstring muscles [7]. This discrepancy may be due, in part, to the exact location and severity of injury within the SM. Several studies show a complex structure of the SM [4, 5, 20, 29]. The proximal tendon of the SM consists of a large aponeurosis, which is round and thick at the lateral area and thin and flat in the medial area [4]. Distally, the SM has a short, wide aponeurosis that develops into a powerful tendon that reaches the tibia [5]. The oriSemimembranosus Muscle Injuries In Sport. A Practical MRI use for Prognosis