Survey of short-term oral corticosteroid administration by orthopaedic physicians in college and high school athletes

the use of oral corticosteroid (ocs) drugs is advocated becauseof their potent anti-inflammatory effects. they also possessmany potential adverse effects. no study has assessed physicianprescribing practices of ocs therapy in high school (hs) orcollege (col) athletes. this paper reports the prescribing patternsof sports medicine physicians who used short-term ocstherapy and to describe associated complications in hs andcol athletes within a 24-month period. an internet link to adescriptive epidemiology survey was included in an e-mail to allmembers of the arthroscopy association of north america andthe american orthopaedic society for sports medicine. descriptivestatistics and correlation analysis were used to examineresponses. total response rate was 32% (615/1,928). sixty-sixpercent of the physicians indicated prescribing ocs to bothgroups of athletes, while 29% reported prescribing ocs to colathletes and 5% to hs athletes for musculoskeletal injuries.physicians who prescribed multiple ocs regimens to the sameathlete within the same season (p = 0.01) and physicians whoprescribed ocs to the skeletally immature athlete (p = 0.009)reported more complications than other physicians. among the412 physicians who did not prescribe ocs in the treatment ofathletic induced musculoskeletal injury, 251 (61%) cited a riskof developing medical complications as the primary reason foravoiding use. the reported number of medical complicationswas low with no cases of avascular necrosis reported for the 2-year recall period. orthopaedic surgeons who treated athleticinduced musculoskeletal injuries with a short-term course oforal corticosteroids reported that high school and college athletesbenefited with few medical complications.