Surgical Procedures – Long Jump Super Athlete

Limb Lengthening Surgery

**Figure 1.** *The X-ray of femur progress after undergoing osteotomy*

Males with long legs usually come to mind when imagining successful long-jump athletes; long legs boost jumping performance as power-jumping muscles achieve higher centre of mass velocities while maintaining a low strain rate, allowing for greater energy expenditure [1]. Additionally, vertical jump height is associated with quadricep strength – both concentric and eccentric – hence higher drop heights result in higher maximal rebound jump heights in stronger athletes [2]. Therefore, osteotomy could aid in regenerating new bone, soft tissues, ligaments and the nerves that surround them. Below is a summary of the limb-lengthening surgery our athlete will undergo:

**Figure 2.** *Flowchart summary of Limb-Lengthening Surgery*

Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Injections

**Figure 3.** The summary process of PRP injection

PRP is derived from patient’s autologous blood, which consists of platelets in a supraphysiological concentration [3] for ulnar collateral ligament tears, achilles tendinopathy and patellar tendonitis [4]. For a long jumper this can be used to medicate achilles tendinitis and jumper’s knee, which leads to a painful patellar tendon as large strain is put on the Achilles tendon during plantar flexion hence has the highest risk of injury. Tendons are slower to heal due to their toughness [5] thus PRP will quicken the healing process when our athlete experiences injury.

**Figure 4.** *Achilles tendinitis due to inflammation of the tendon.*

Figure 4.0: Patella Tendonitis — **Figure 5.** *Patella Tendonitis (Jumper’s Knee) due to injury patella in Patella*

No.	Factors	Explanations
1.	Triggering circulating growth factor through biological pathway activation	Isolated, concentrated and activated platelets’ ability in inducing growth factor content by four-fold [6] Releasing cytokines and bioactive proteins over its lifespan [7] such as: TGF-1, TGF-2, Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF-AA, PDGF-AB, and PDGF-BB) Vascular endothelial Epidermal growth factor
2.	Attracting variety of cell types	Cell types [8] : Wounded tendon’s tenocytes Leucocytes Local stem cells
3.	Promotes: Angiogenesis Stem cell homing Local cell migration, proliferation, differentiation, deposition of proteins like collagen	Aid in the restoration of normal tissue structure and functional proliferation of human tenocytes [8]
4.	Presence of white blood cells in this treatment	Treating inflammation and infection, further assisting with the healing process [7]

Figure 6. Table listing the main factors that cause a faster wound healing in PRP injection.