Dear Colleagues, 

Pathologies of the foot and ankle are commonly encountered in children and adolescents. These types of injuries can account for up to 30% of visits to sports medicine clinics.¹ In the United States, greater than half of boys and one-quarter of girls in the 8-to-16-year-old age range engage in some sort of competitive, scholastic, organized sport during the school year.² Such activities are prone to overuse injuries and acute trauma.

Anatomical differences in the adolescent patient demand a firm knowledge of the normal development of the foot and ankle to understand age-specific injury patterns. Children and adolescents are skeletally immature compared to their adult counterparts. The presence of a growth plate, known as the epiphyseal plate, is a key distinguishing factor in developing musculoskeletal structures that is not seen in the adult population. The epiphyseal plate is less resistant to shear and tensile forces than the adjacent bony structures¹, predisposing younger patients to injury.     

Early diagnosis and intervention are crucial in preventing negative sequelae. An understanding of the developing foot and ankle, combined with sports-specific mechanisms of injury, can be instrumental in making the correct diagnosis and instituting the appropriate treatment. This Special Issue will be devoted to understanding commonly encountered foot and ankle pathologies in the adolescent population. Specific problems we address are ankle sprain, os trigonum, Jones fracture, tarsal coalition, syndesmotic ankle sprain, ankle fracture, metatarsal fracture, physeal fractures, Lisfranc injury, Sever’s disease (calcaneal apophysitis), and recurrent club foot, amongst other topics.

Dr. Albert Thomas Anastasio
Dr. Samuel B. Adams
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• foot and ankle
• adolescent
• ankle sprain
• Achilles
• jones fracture
• osteochondral lesion of the talus
• growth plate
• tarsal coalition
• ankle fracture