The risk and nature of injury in the sport of boxing has
generated a great deal of controversy in the medical community,
especially in relation to youth boxing. A new study, conducted
by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital,
examined boxing injuries among participants 6 years of age and
older from 1990 to 2008. During the 19-year study period, an
average of 8,700 boxing injuries were treated in United States
emergency departments each year, and approximately 2,500 of
those injuries were to children and adolescents 6 to 17 years of
age. The number of boxing injuries each year increased 211
percent during the study, climbing from 5,361 injuries in 1990
to nearly 17,000 injuries in 2008. According to the study,
released online February 28, 2011 by the American Journal of
Preventive Medicine, the most common injury diagnosis was a
fracture (28 percent). The hand was the most frequently injured
body region (33 percent), followed by the