High return-to-play rates found for football players who underwent surgery for shoulder instability

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Results presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting showed high-level intercollegiate football players who underwent arthroscopic surgery without concomitant procedures for shoulder instability had an 85% return-to-play rate.

“Anterior instability direction was the most common reason for shoulder surgery,” Richard J. Robins, MD, said during his presentation. “The majority of these interventions were arthroscopic and while we found no difference between open vs. arthroscopic, the comparison may be underpowered due to the small cohort of open surgery patients.”

Robins and colleagues sent out requests to seven sports medicine programs that provided care for football players. Investigators identified 153 football players with 177 shoulder injuries. Data collected for each athlete included instability direction, surgery type, time to resume sports participation, quality and level of play prior to and following surgery. Return to play, scholarship influence and depth chart position were determined. Robins and colleagues also determined the percent of games athletes played prior to and following surgery to determine the effect surgery had on a player’s chances of return to play.

“[W]hat we found is that players who were more highly utilized prior to injury had a 94% return to play rate vs. athletes who were rarely utilized in the program retuned at only 76%. This finding was significant,” he said. “When we looked at the percentage of games played prior to injury vs. those played after surgery, there is a 20% increase in the number games played they were eligible for.”

Robins also noted scholarship status was significantly associated with return-to-play ability following surgery. Return-to-play athletes who either missed one practice or game had a 15.5% re-injury rate due to subsequential shoulder injury, with a 10% rate of subsequent shoulder surgery.

He added, “Players performing a higher level can anticipate a higher chance of returning to play.” – by Monica Jaramillo

Reference:

Robins RJ, et al. Paper #128. Presented at: American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting; July 7-10, 2016; Colorado Spring, Colo.

Disclosure: Robins reports reports no relevant financial disclosures.