Musculoskeletal Injuries in an Ecuadorian Professional Soccer Team: A Retrospective Study (2022–2025)
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Published in Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026) of Loja Medical Journal.
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Introduction: Professional football is associated with a high risk of injury, particularly lower-limb muscle injuries; therefore, epidemiological surveillance and diagnostic processes should be strengthened within each club. Objective: To determine the frequency and distribution of the most common musculoskeletal injuries in high-performance athletes from a professional football team in Ecuador during the 2022–2025 seasons. Methods: An observational, descriptive, retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted. Forty-one anonymized clinical-imaging records of players evaluated between March 2022 and December 2025 were analyzed. The variables assessed were age, imaging diagnostic method, diagnosis, affected anatomical region, and type of injury. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed using absolute frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation, median, and range. Since the dataset did not include exposure hours, it was not possible to calculate incidence rates per 1000 hours of training or competition. Results: The mean age was 25.6 ± 3.6 years (median: 25; range: 19–37). The 23–26-year age group accounted for 51.2% of the records. Ultrasonography was the most frequently used diagnostic method (90.2%), whereas radiography accounted for 9.8%. The most affected anatomical region was the thigh (56.1%), followed by the knee (17.1%) and the ankle/foot (12.2%). Muscle injuries were the main type of injury (63.4%), followed by ligamentous and inflammatory joint injuries (9.8% each). Among muscle injuries, quadriceps/anterior thigh and semitendinosus/hamstring involvement were the most frequent findings, each accounting for 26.9% of all muscle injuries. Conclusions: In this Ecuadorian professional football team, injuries predominantly involved the thigh and were mainly muscular, with extensive use of ultrasonography as an initial diagnostic tool. These findings support the need to strengthen preventive strategies targeting the anterior thigh, hamstrings, adductors, and medial knee, as well as to standardize surveillance using exposure, time-loss, and recurrence variables.
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