The authors of this study are to be congratulated on a Level I randomized prospective study of the use of a platelet-leukocyte membrane inserted between the cuff and the bone during arthroscopic single row repair of supraspinatus only cuff tears. It is of interest that for these accomplished Italian surgeons, the use of these membranes added only 11 minutes to the case and added only $90 to the cost of the case.
The results showed that among the 76 shoulders available for one year followup, retears by MRI were noted only among the 37 shoulders without the membrane (3 retears in total).
The clinical improvement was substantial and virtually identical in both groups: 24 points in the Constant score and 7 points in the SST.
The authors are quite modest in their conclusions: "the use of platelet-leukocyte membrane led to a slight improvement, as assessed by MRI, in the repair integrity of large tears involving the supraspinatus tendon, although this improvement was not associated with a better objective functional outcome".
A one year retear rate of 4% is consistent with previous reports of other methods. As the authors point out, the retreat rate may will increase with time; it will be most valuable if they could provide us with a comparison of the two groups at five years.
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Use the "Search the Blog" box to the right to find other topics of interest to you.
You may be interested in some of our most visited web pages including:shoulder arthritis, total shoulder, ream and run, reverse total shoulder, CTA arthroplasty, and rotator cuff surgery.
