Sunday, November 6, 2016

Reverse total shoulder for locked fracture dislocation - an issue of glenoid bone deficiency

Reverse arthroplasty for patients with chronic locked dislocation of the shoulder (type 2 fracture sequela) 

These authors reviewed 22 patients (mean age 71 years) with chronic locked fracture dislocations.

While there was a significant increase in comfort and function, there were 7 complications (32%), leading to revision surgery in 6 cases (27%). The most common reason (4 cases) for revision surgery
was failure of the glenoid component due to bone defects on the glenoid side. In each case, a large defect of the anterior glenoid was treated with an augmentation using bone from the humeral head to restore the bony anatomy. In each case, the 15-mm central peg of the glenoid baseplate was inserted only partially into the native glenoid bone. The failures occurred after 1 week, 1 month, 9 months, and 2 years.
Revision surgery was performed in all cases, consisting of removal of the glenoid implant and conversion to hemiarthroplasty with a large head designed for cuff tear arthropathy. Of these 4 patients, 3 rated their result as unsatisfying.  Another patient had 2 dislocations of the implant during the first postoperative week. One other patient had a fracture of the humerus due to a fall and another patient had a late infection 3 years after surgery.

Here is one of their examples of the problem

The axillary view shows major glenoid bone loss.

Screw fixation of the glenoid was compromised by the glenoid bone loss.

 And the baseplate became loose.

The authors have demonstrated that glenoid bone grafting may be helpful in such cases but emphasize the importance of fixing the baseplate to native bone.



Comment: In a prior post A difficult combination: simultaneous humeral head and glenoid defects
we showed the difficulty in attempting to manage glenoid defects with an anatomic arthroplasty.

We've posted some thoughts on the management of glenoid bone defects here:

Reverse total shoulder - managing glenoid bone defects


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