Today, I'll be discussing our paper entitled A Change in Achilles Rupture Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic. These are our relevant disclosures. The COVID-19 global pandemic resulted in lockdowns and quarantines and led to increased levels of sedentary behaviour. The literature has demonstrated that returning to physical activity after extended periods of inactivity increases the rates of musculoskeletal injuries. Due to the global pandemic, there is concern that there may be an increased risk of acute Achilles tendon ruptures in both the athletic and the general population. The purpose of this study was to investigate the rates of acute Achilles tendon rupture requiring repair in a single academic centre in NYC and to assess if a corollary exists in the NFL. So this retrospective study was conducted to identify the total number of Achilles acute primary repair surgeries performed between 2017 and 2021 at a single academic centre in New York City. NFL data was obtained from publicly available sites according to previously validated studies. G-square analysis was conducted between the proportion of Achilles surgeries performed in 2021 and between 2017 and 2020 at a single academic centre in NYC. G-square analysis was performed in a similar manner, however, between each year and 2021. Our cohort included 588 patients who had tried to meet a mean age of 43.2 years and were predominantly male, about 445 males, which made up of 75.7% of the cohort. We found that there was an 8.9% increase in acute Achilles tendon rupture incidents from 2020 to 2021. Additionally, we found that there was a 2.9% increase in acute Achilles tendon rupture incidents during the years of 2017 and 2019 compared to 2021. Looking at the NFL data, we found that there was a 10.5% increase in acute Achilles tendon rupture incidents from the 2019-2020 season to the 2020-2021 NFL season. Our study has numerous limitations. Firstly, we found that by using CPT codes for acute Achilles repairs, you're simply estimating the rate of acute Achilles tendon rupture, as not all acute Achilles tendon ruptures are indicated for surgery. Many patients had moved out of NYC during the pandemic, particularly in 2020, which may contribute to lower rates of surgery within our institutions. Acute Achilles tendon ruptures are also pathologies that can be reasonably treated non-operatively. This less aggressive operative management of these injuries may have occurred during 2020, when elective surgeries were cancelled due to COVID-19. In regards to NFL data, our study is limited that for all seasons prior to the 2019-2020 season, we use data from prior published studies and thus the data is only as accurate as those original publications. So in summary, we found that acute Achilles tendon ruptures occurred at an increased rate in 2021 following a period of activity and sedentary behavior induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. This information provides important information for medical practitioners and athletic trainers when cancelling patients and athletes and return to sport in this pandemic, especially with possible future lockdowns and quarantines on the horizon.

Achilles rupture rates

COVID-19 pandemic

sedentary behavior

acute Achilles tendon ruptures

retrospective study