Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies

Introduction: Non weight-bearing tests are routinely performed to diagnose meniscal tears, recently it has been suggested that tests performed in weight-bearing can produce higher diagnostic values as they effectively imitate the mechanism of injury to the meniscus by increasing axial load. We prospectively evaluated two non-weight bearing meniscal tests (McMurrays and Joint Line Tenderness), with two weight-bearing tests (Thessalys and Eges). The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity values of these tests were then calculated by correlating with arthroscopy findings.

Methods: The four clinical tests were performed on 89 subjects pre-operatively. A positive or negative result was recorded following each clinical test and later compared against the arthroscopy findings post operatively.

Results: The weight-bearing tests were overall shown to have a better diagnostic value than non-weight bearing tests. For the medial meniscus, joint line tenderness was the most sensitive test; Eges the most specific, Thessalys had the highest PPV and NPV and was the most accurate. For the lateral meniscus, joint line tenderness was the most sensitive; Mcmurrays the most specific, Thessalys had the highest PPV and NPV and was the most accurate. All four tests were more accurate for medial meniscus compared to lateral. Other pathologies found within the knee were shown to have negative effect on the clinical efficacy of the tests and the highest number of misdiagnoses for meniscal tears occurred with the JLT.

Conclusion: This study suggests that the overall clinical ability of the weight-bearing tests to determine the true presence or absence of a Meniscus tear is higher than non-weight-bearing tests.

The current detection methods for stanozolol are all based on targeted approach. The present study aimed to assess the global biological effect of stanozolol-treatment by means of chemometric models, after generating and comparing horse urine LC-HRMS fingerprints collected from control and stanozolol-treated horses. The animal study was conducted according to an ethically approved protocol at two different places in France: Chamberet and Coye la Forêt. The total duration of the animal phase was seven months and only females were selected to partake. The sixteen mares in this study were not actively racing horses, but were in good physical condition. SIMCA-P+ software and R free software environment were used for multivariate data analysis. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Orthogonal Projections to Latent Structures-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) were applied to build some descriptive and predictive models. The analyzed horse urine fingerprints based on the 220 features selected after suppression of confounding factors show changes in metabolic states after chronic stanozolol treatment. This proof of concept study confirms the power of untargeted approach in doping control since the changes are present over seven months after anabolic administration.

Objective: Although research on the personal and psychosocial predictors of doping has been extensive, the factors related to the socio-cognitive self-regulatory mechanisms of doping remain unexplored. The aim of this study was to test an integrated multi-theory model examining the role of self-determined motivation in sport in the self-regulatory mechanisms of doping intentions in elite athletes.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was employed. Two hundred and sixty-four elite athletes completed a survey that included measures of self-determination (autonomous vs. controlled), affective self-regulatory efficacy, resistive self-regulatory efficacy, moral disengagement, and doping intentions.

Results: Structural equation modeling showed that the model predicted 47.3% of the variance in doping intentions and indicated that both autonomous and controlled motivations were indirectly associated with doping intentions through the mediating role of affective self-regulatory efficacy, resistive self-regulatory efficacy, and moral disengagement.

Conclusion: Self-determination theory provides insight into how motivation in sport influences athletes’ doping intentions through its impact on socio-cognitive self-regulatory mechanisms.