There is great current interest in the management of functionally irreparable rotator cuff tears.
Here is an informative case demonstrating the utility of two conservative surgical procedures.
A commercial truck (18 wheeler) driver presented two years ago with a painful left shoulder. His x-rays are shown here
His MRI demonstrated a severely retracted supraspinatus and infraspinatus with a detached subscapularis. In spite of this his left shoulder showed active elevation to 120 degrees.
Because of the heavy physical nature of his work, he elected to have a CTA arthroplasty (seee this link). At surgery, he had retracted irreparable subscapularis, supraspinatus, and subscapularis tendons and severe cuff tear arthropathy.
Three months after surgery he had a comfortable functional shoulder and returned to work. Here are his x-rays at two years after surgery.
Two years later he presented with right shoulder pain. His images at that time are shown below
Less than 24 hours after surgery, he had the shoulder function shown below.
He will return to driving his rig two weeks after his surgery.
This case illustrates the utility of conservative surgical procedures in shoulders with retained active elevation.
Of note is the fact that neither the CTA or the smooth and move procedures are associated with complications and both allow for more aggressive procedures in the unlikely event that they prove unsuccessful.
===
How you can support research in shoulder surgery Click on this link.
We have a new set of shoulder youtubes about the shoulder, check them out 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 arthritis, total shoulder, ream and run, reverse total shoulder, CTA arthroplasty, and rotator cuff surgery as well as the 'ream and run essentials'
