Abstract

Skin diseases were investigated in 1,088 male players of high school sport clubs. The controls were 117 members of non-sport (culture) clubs of the same high schools and 391 male patients of the same age groups seen in our out-patient clinic. Representative diseases of the sport player group were tylosis (72), acne vulgaris (52), tinea pedis (21), friction blister (14), traumatic scar and pigmentation (9), and black heel (8). Acne vulgaris, tylosis and tinea pedis were also present in each control group, although the incidences being low. Tylosis ranked first in each sport event (93 to 37). It was observed that the highest incidence of tinea pedis was in the volleyball players (29), friction blister in the Japanese fencing Kendo group (24), acne vulgaris in the kendo group (27) and black heel in the basketball players (25). The predilection pattern of tylosis was classified into the toe metatarso-phalangeal joint flexor-side > finger metacarpo-phalangeal joint flexor side type, to which the basketball, ping-pong, soccer and rugby players belonged, and the reverse type, to which the soft-ball tennis, volleyball and skiers belonged. The rate of bilateral occurrence of tylosis was significantly lower in the baseball, kendo, ping-pong and soft-ball tennis players. To assess the degree with which each disease hinders sports training, the concept of training hindering index was devised. Verf.-Referat