Is Q-Angle a Predictor of Knee Ligament and Meniscus Injury in Elite Wrestlers?

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between Q-angle and knee ligament and meniscus injury in elite wrestlers.The present study was descriptive – correlation and the method was the two-variable linear regression. Sample of this study included all national freestyle wrestlers with more than seven years of athletic experience; they suffered from knee ligament and meniscus injuries as well. Seventy five injured freestyle wrestlers were participated in this study (mean age: 26.7±2.3 , mean weight: 71.8±4.6, mean height: 179.2±3.3) and they suffered from knee injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament injuries (ACL), posterior cruciate ligament injuries (PCL), ligament collateral ligament injuries (LCL), medial collateral ligament injuries (MCL), medial meniscus (MM), and lateral meniscus (LM). The Q-angle was measured by the universal goniometer (0.1 accuracy). Genu varum and genu valgum were measured by collice (1.1 accuracy). According to the results, malignment lower extremity (i.e. a decrease or an increase in Q-angle which shows genu varum and genu valgum in freestyle wrestlers) was an important factor for knee ligament and meniscus injury. Descriptive results reported the frequency percentage of maligment lower extremity as 46%, genu varum as 19%, and frequency percentage of ACL as 38%, MCL as 36%, PCL as 19%, LCL as 17%, MM as 65.07% and LM as 33.92%. Also, the results showed a meaningful relationship between maligment lower extremity (a decrease or an increase in Q-angle) and knee ligaments injuries. But results of data analysis did not show a meaningful relationship between MM and LM injuries when Q-angle changed.