ArticleBiology of sport2025
Return-to-play criteria based on infrared thermography during anterior cruciate ligament rehabilitation in football players.
Article in Biology of sport, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Science of heat mapping: Thermography in musculoskeletal disorders.World journal of orthopedics · 2026Review
- Infrared thermography to assess fatigue, injury risk factors and recovery in soccer: a systematic review of original studies.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Review
- Monitoring distal radius fractures during rehabilitation using infrared thermography.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Article
- Reframing Ankle Sprain Management: The Role of Thermography in Ligament Injury Monitoring.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Changes in the Infrared Thermographic Response of the Triceps Suralis Muscle During Ankle Flexion-Extension Until Exhaustion in Healthy Adults.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Are decorin gene variants associated with anterior cruciate ligament rupture susceptibility?Biology of sport · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is associated with degenerative changes during the return-to-play (RTP) process. Infrared thermography, due to its usefulness in monitoring the state of tissues, could help establish physiological criteria for monitoring the knee joint. The aim of the study was to describe normative skin temperature (Tsk) asymmetry of the knee region of interest (knee ROI) from football players during the ACL RTP process. Thirty professional and semi-professional football players, both male and female, from three different European leagues (age: 26.84 ± 3.46 years; height: 1.83 ± 0.22 m; weight: 75.38 ± 5.92 kg) were evaluated using thermography during their RTP process. A linear mixed model was then developed in which Tsk asymmetry was the dependent variable. Sex and Day were included as predictor variables with fixed effects. Athlete was included as a random effect with (Model 1 and Model 2) and without (Model 3) interaction with Day. Model 2 was fitted with a random intercept and random independent slopes, and Model 3 was fitted with a random intercept and random dependent slopes. The results showed the estimates of the model in which both predictor variables were significant. The asymmetry decreased during the days after surgery (-0.01 per day after surgery). The results might help to establish an objective criterion based on infrared thermography for monitoring the rehabilitation stages in the RTP of football players during one year of evolution. The assessment of the thermal asymmetries of the knee ROI during the RTP established a Tsk progression criterion. Medical and technical staff could implement an infrared thermography tool for knee monitoring between RTP stages.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.