The sensitivity and the positive predictive values of the Finnish hospital discharge registers and causes of death registers are fairly good. Finnish administrative registers can be used for the monitoring of stroke incidence, but the number of cerebral infarctions should be interpreted with caution.

Diagnoses of fatal and non-fatal CHD events in the Finnish HDR and Causes of Death register were reasonably valid indicators for hard CHD events when compared with the FINMONICA/FINAMI register data.

A prospective study of male soccer injuries among 12 teams playing at the highest competition level was carried out in Finland in 1993. Overall, two out of three players were injured during the whole season. The injury incidence per 1000 playing hours among injured players and all players during games was higher than during practice, 14.2 vs. 11.3 and 2.3 vs. 1.8, respectively. The lower extremity was involved in 76% of the injuries. Thigh injuries were most frequent (22%), whereas overuse injuries were scarce (6%). Eighteen per cent of the injured players needed surgery and in most cases (58%) the reason for surgery was a knee injury. Sixteen per cent of all injured players were absent from soccer for more than 1 month after the injury. The mean absence time was 17 days for all and 84 days for operatively treated players.

Background and Purpose-The purpose of this study was to analyze the incidence and mortality trends in stroke events among persons 25 to 74 years of age in Finland during 1983 to 1997. Methods-The population-based FINSTROKE register recorded 5650 new strokes among persons 25 to 74 years of age in 2 geographical areas of Finland: 2770 in the Kuopio area (east central Finland) and 2880 in Turku (southwestern Finland). Of these, 3065 were men and 2585 were women. Results-The rates of acute stroke events fell during the whole study period in both men and women. In both FINSTROKE areas combined, the average annual decline in the age-standardized incidence of first stroke events was 2.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], Ϫ2.8 to Ϫ1.2; PϽ0.001) among men and 1.7% (95% CI, Ϫ2.6 to Ϫ0.8; PϽ0.001) among women. The decline in the incidence of ischemic stroke was even steeper, 2.9%/y (95% CI, Ϫ4.9 to Ϫ1.1; PϽ0.001) among men and 3.1%/y (95% CI, Ϫ5.0 to Ϫ1.1; PϽ0.001) among women, whereas the incidence of intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage did not change. Mortality from all stroke events declined in the FINSTROKE areas by 3.7%/y (95% CI, Ϫ5.3 to Ϫ2.0; PϽ0.001) among men and by 4.1%/y (95% CI, Ϫ5.9 to Ϫ2.4; PϽ0.001) among women. The 28-day case fatality of all stroke events also tended to decline, but the decline was of borderline statistical significance only (Pϭ0.07 among men, Pϭ0.05 among women). Conclusions-Incidence