الفهرس 
Elbow AnatomyOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Racquet sports are one of the most popular sports all over the globe with millions of participants and spectators with Tennis, Squash and Badminton being the most famous. Players of all ages practice these sports either in a professional or recreational way for their well-demonstrated health benefits.
Albeit being a non contact sport, racquet sports have their own risk for trauma and injury and surprisingly the rates of injury is very similar to other types of sports. Elbow injuries were found to be quite common in racquet sports and have their own characteristic mechanism of injuries.
Injured players must be thoroughly examined by a sports medicine physician whom will decide later whether to further investigate using a suitable imaging modality, proceed to treatment or refer to sports medicine surgeon.
The serve, overhead strike, forehand and backhand with or without added topspin or slice are the main strokes in racquet sports and they sustain different types of stressors on the elbow osseous and soft tissue structures like valgus and varus stresses on top of pronation & supination with flexion and extension.
The most common and specific injuries related to racquet sports are lateral epicondylosis, flexor-pronator mass injuries, valgus extension overload syndrome, osteochondral injury of the capitellum or trochlea, ulnar collateral ligament injury, medial epicondyle apophysitis and stress injury of the olecranon. Other less common injuries include olecranon and bicipitoradidal bursitis, injuries of distal biceps and triceps tendons, snapping of the medial head of triceps and others.
When examining the elbow joint, a radiologist should be wary of the high association of different injuries that may happen to different osseous and soft tissue structures in the same compartment with the ability to discriminate them. For example, in severe cases of UCL injury of the may be accompanied by flexor-pronator mass and ulnar nerve as well as medial epicondyle apophysitis in young players.
The range of injuries of the common flexor and extensor origins as well as distal biceps and triceps tendons encompasses tendinosis, partial and full thickness tears.
Ulnar and radial collateral ligaments injuries also varies from a simple sprain, partial to complete thickness tear with or without avulsion of their bony attachment and may result in different types of joint instabilities like valgus extension overload syndrome in UCL injuries and posterolateral rotator instability in RCL injuries.
Osseous and chondral lesions that occur include medial epicondyle apophysitis, posteromedial compression, lateral radiocapitellar compression, osteochondral lesions as well as stress
Most sports medicine institutions start their investigations with conventional radiography to exclude fractures and dislocations. Computed tomography is used to assess intra-articular extension of fractures, malalignment and for postoperative follow up. Ultrasonography is used in case of suspected isolated tendon or ligament injury besides its guidance in intra-articular injection of medication.
Finally, Magnetic resonance imaging is the gold standard for routine comprehensive evaluation of elbow soft tissue and bone marrow pathologies. And due to its high resolution and capability to show different soft tissue structures, MRI gives the radiologist and the physician the insight to identify the main injury, any other associated lesion and even the etiology or the risk factors that led to the current problem. MRI also allows the follow up after treatment whether conservative or surgical.
MR arthrography is one of the best additions of MRI and used in specific situations like in case of high suspicion of subtle but clinically significant soft tissue injury especially inapparent partial ligamentous tears or in the assessment of chondral and osteochondral injuries and stability.