Injury Newsroom

Head Trauma Results In More Fatalities Than Any Other Sport Injury And Is The Cause Of Most Football Fatalities

Head trauma results in more fatalities than any other sport injury and is the cause of most football fatalities, but it can also be associated with other sports.1,2 Fatal head injuries have been reported in soccer, wrestling, track, baseball, and a number of other sports. The morbidity and mortality associated with traumatic brain injury have been labeled a silent epidemic because they have received remarkably little attention compared with other neurologic illnesses.3 Traumatic brain injury is common in contact sports, with an estimated 250000 concussions occurring every year in football alone.4 Repeated concussions occurring within a short period can be fatal.

Second-impact syndrome, or rapid brain swelling and herniation after a second head injury, is more common than previous reports in the medical literature have suggested.7 Between 1980 and 1991, the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill identified 29 probable cases among football players alone.8,9 Schneider10 first described second-impact syndrome in 1973. The syndrome occurs when an athlete who sustained a head injury—often a concussion or a worse injury, such as a cerebral contusion
sustains a second head injury before symptoms associated with the first have cleared. For a catastrophic condition that has a mortality rate approaching 50% and a morbidity rate nearing 100%, prevention takes on the utmost importance.

Guskiewicz et al11 found that football players who sustained 1 concussion in a season were 3 times more likely to sustain a second concussion in the same season compared with uninjured players. Recent statistics suggest that approximately 300000 sport-related traumatic brain injuries or head injuries occur annually in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention12 reported a high incidence of repeated head injuries in several sports and warned that the likelihood of serious sequelae increases with repeated head injury.