Variations in common operations in athletes and non-Athletes

Background: Achieving pre-injury activity level after an injury is the fundamental goal of any orthopedic treatment for an athlete. Unfortunately, pre-injury activity levels differ significantly in different patient categories, especially in athletes and non-athlete. Hence, an outcome suitable to a non-athlete may not be adequate for an athlete. This has led to variations in the surgical approach to the same injury in an athlete and non-athlete. There is plenty of literature published comparing the outcome in athletes and non-athletes after a particular surgery. Scattered discussion about variations in these surgeries based on functional demand was done in many publications. But there was a lack of a comprehensive narrative review summarizing variations in common operations among athletes and non-athletes. Aim: This review attempted to summarize variations in common sports operations between high functional demand patients and low demand patients and discuss the variations from the author's perspective. Methods: A review of all the relevant papers were conducted focusing on athletes and non-athletes. Most commonly performed sports surgeries were ACL reconstruction, Meniscal repair, PCL reconstruction, and Shoulder instability surgery. A literature search was done for each commonly performed surgery using relevant keywords in PubMed and Google Scholars. Summary of papers pertinent to athletes and non-athletes were compiled to prepare this narrative review. Results: There is a lack of papers directly comparing results in athletes and non-athletes. However, many research papers discussed surgical variations in athletes (high demand) and non-athletes (low demand) patients. There are controversies in all commonly performed surgeries, and none of the papers gives a definitive guideline on the approach to athletes and non-athlete. Conclusion: Rather than a common suggestion on surgical variation, an individualized approach would be appropriate to decide on variation in particular surgery in both athletes and non-athletes.