These authors start their review with these statements, "Rotator cuff tears are common in the general population. Many patients with rotator cuff tears remain asymptomatic, but others have pain and functional disability warranting surgical intervention. It has been estimated that 250,000 to 275,000 rotator cuff repairs are performed in the United States annually."
They review a range of complications after cuff surgery, including infection, anchor displacement, stiffness, chondrolysis and nerve injury.
However, the most frequent complication they listed was retearing or failure of healing, which they noted in 4.5% to 94% of repair attempts. The predominant site of failure is noted to be at the tendon-suture interface, indicating that the quality of the edge of the torn tendon is a limiting factor in the durability of the repair. They state, "the true clinical effect of a retear is unknown". Patient-reported outcomes did not differ significantly between patients with a healed rotator cuff and those with a structural failure.
Comment: These observations brings up two questions:
(1) "What makes some cuff tears symptomatic, while most remain asymptomatic"?
(2) "If the clinical outcomes of repair surgery are similar whether or not the repair is intact, what determines the quality of the result after rotator cuff surgery?"
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Consultation for those who live a distance away from Seattle.
Click here to see the new Shoulder Arthritis Book.
Click here to see the new Rotator Cuff Book
Information about shoulder exercises can be found at this link.
Use the "Search" 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 as well as the 'ream and run essentials'
See from which cities our patients come.
