This study was carried out on 24 students in their final year of ballet high-school. At the time of the research the participants were between 16 and 18 years old and had practiced ballet for 8 to 10 years at an intensity of 20 to 25 hours per week. The study was conducted by a group of 6 researchers from Croatia, Slovenia and the United States. To assess the association between body-built (ectomorphic, mesomorphic, or endomorphic) and injury occurrence, the researchers took anthropometric measurements such as body height and mass, triceps skinfold, subscapular skinfold, suprailiac skinfold, calf skinfold, biepicondylar breadth, bicondylar breadth, flexed arm circumference, and calf circumference; and at the end of the school year, data on injuries was collected. In this study, most of the ballet dancers were characterized as ectomorphic-mesomorphic, meaning that the mesomorphic component was dominant, while ectomorphism was greater compared to endomorphism (ectomorphism: 3.23 ± 0.54; ...

For this study, 150 trainee ballet dancers (80 males, 70 females) belonging to the ballet schools of the "Teatro Alla Scala" in Milan, aged between 10 and 21 years, were considered. From September 2005 to September 2007, the researchers retrospectively created a database in which they collected clinical examinations and imaging studies of the dancers. 19 dancers (9 males, 10 females) presented stress fractures in the base of the metatarsal bones. The average age of the patients was 16.4 years. In all of them the appearance of pain and/or discomfort was gradual,  related to specific foot positions and increased training sessions. In a range of 7 to 20 days, a standard radiograph was taken which in 11 patients was negative (grade 1-2), in 8 cases showed a cortical reaction (grade 3) and only in one case a stress fracture was observed (grade 4). Later, a MRI was performed, in which the stress fracture and intramedullary edema were evident. All patients were treated non-surgicall...