Healio
Healio
January 09, 2014
1 min read
Save

Tendon integrity does not impact function after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair

While researchers of this study found patients with small- to medium-sized rotator cuff tears who had complete supraspinatus tendon disruption had larger tears and more advanced muscle degeneration than patients with intact tendons, they discovered tendon disruption did not significantly impact clinical results.  

“Our data suggested that integrity of the anterior supraspinatus tendon did not appear to be a critical factor in influencing preoperative pain and shoulder function and had no significant influence on the post-surgical functional results in patients with symptomatic small- to medium-sized tears,” Surena Namdari, MD, MSc, and colleagues, wrote in their study. Based on their findings, they suggested that factors other than tear size and location may play a bigger role in the function of these patients.
Namdari and colleagues studied 112 patients with an average age of 55 years who underwent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Patients were grouped based on anterior supraspinatus integrity – 83 patients had intact shoulders intact, and 29 patients with anterior supraspinatus tendon disruption. Overall, patients had a mean clinical follow-up of 24.5 months.
Grades 0, 1 and 2 fatty degeneration of the supraspinatus were seen in 92.8%, 6%, and 1.2% of patients with intact shoulders, respectively. For patients with anterior supraspinatus tendon disruption, 58.6% were classified as grade 0, 34.5% were classified as grade 1, and 6.9% were classified as grade 2. Grades 0, 1 and 2 fatty degeneration of the infraspinatus were seen in 83.1%, 13.3%, and 3.6% of patients with intact shoulders compared with 69%, 20.7% and 6.9% of patients with anterior supraspinatus tendon disruption, respectively.

Postoperatively, the investigators found no significant differences between the groups for Constant and ASES scores and healing rates. – by Christian Ingram

Disclosure: One co-author (Yamaguchi) receives royalties from Tornier and is on the Zimmer shoulder arthroplasty design team. All other authors have no relevant financial disclosures.

Sources/Disclosures

Collapse
Source:

Namdari S. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2014;doi:10.1016/j.jse.2013.05.015