FRIDAY, Feb. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Young female lacrosse players sustain more head, face and eye injuries than male players, suggesting a need for more protective gear, researchers report in the February issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Andrew E. Lincoln, Sc.D., of the Medstar Research Institute in Hyattsville, Md., and colleagues compared injuries sustained by 507,000 high school and 649,573 college lacrosse players during four sports seasons.
The researchers found that high school girls had head, eye and face injury rates of 0.54 per 1,000 athletic exposures, versus 0.38 per 1,000 for boys, a 1.42 higher injury rate ratio for girls. In college women, the head, eye and face injury rate was 0.77 per 1,000, versus 0.44 for males, a 1.76 higher injury rate ratio. Almost three-quarters of males' injuries were concussions, versus fewer than half for females.
"For men, the primary injury mechanism was player-to-player contact; women's injuries primarily resulted from stick or ball contact," the authors note.
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