ReviewCureus2026
Return-to-Play Protocols for Various Injuries in Skeletally Immature Athletes: A Systematic Review.
Review in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sports-related injuries are a commonly encountered orthopedic complaint in the United States. Return-to-play (RTP) protocols are in place to guide safe progression through injury recovery and offer a stepwise timeline for resuming athletic activity. In pediatric athletes, this is increasingly important in the context of disrupted growth, muscular and skeletal imbalances, and heightened social importance of team-based activities. Despite this, there is limited literature defining a concise RTP protocol for pediatric athletes suffering from various common sports-related injuries. The primary aim of this investigation was to systematically review and synthesize existing RTP protocols for the most commonly encountered pediatric athletic injuries based on the currently available literature at this time. The literature search for this analysis was performed in the Biomedical Reference Collection, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and MEDLINE. After inclusion criteria were met and article screening was performed, a total of 36 articles were selected for further qualitative analysis. This review reaffirmed the lack of standardized RTP protocols for pediatric sports injuries. A total of 51% of the protocols analyzed involved anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears and concussions, both of which hold highly variable RTP guidelines. For ACL injuries, this review determined an average of 9-12 months of recovery is the most commonly utilized timeframe; however, younger athletes may require upwards of 14-16 months depending on physeal maturation. While concussion protocols are relatively accepted across athletic disciplines, there are possible improvements available, including sport-specific testing such as the Gapski-Goodman Test, provocation tests, or ImPACT scoring. RTP protocols are highly variable depending on a variety of factors such as the type of provider performing the assessment, age of the patient, and the sport involved. Further research is necessary to further delineate the nuanced differences in safe RTP guidelines for injuries seen in each sport.
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.