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Acromioplasty with rotator cuff repair yielded no long-term benefits
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CHICAGO — Patients with full-ligament superior rotator cuff tears who underwent subacromial decompression in conjunction with rotator cuff repair had no long-term benefits compared with patients who underwent rotator cuff repair alone, according to results presented here.
Brian R. Waterman, MD, and colleagues collected anatomic and surgical variables among 114 patients with full-ligament superior rotator cuff tears randomly assigned to undergo rotator cuff repair either with or without acromioplasty. At 92-month follow-up, researchers had information on 77% of patients.
“When we looked at several different patient-reported measures, we were unable to find any statistically significant differences between the acromioplasty and non-acromioplasty groups,” Waterman said in his presentation at the Arthroscopy Association of North American Annual Meeting. “This included the [American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons], the VAS for pain, constant, simple shoulder test [and] University of California, Los Angeles activity scores, as well as the global SF-12.”
Waterman also noted no statistically significant differences in changes in trends within each individual category from 2-year to 6-year time points. He said patients had no statistically significant differences in rates of re-tear, with three re-tears in the non-acromioplasty group and two re-tears in the acromioplasty group.
“When we also tried to parse this out by acromion morphology to see if there were any distinct trends, again, we found no statistically significant differences, particularly for the type 3 acromion,” Waterman said. – by Casey Tingle
Reference:
Waterman BR, et al. Paper 7. Presented at: Arthroscopy Association of North America Annual Meeting; April 26-28, 2018; Chicago.
Disclosure: Waterman reports he is a board or committee member for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Arthroscopy Association of North America and the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons; is on the editorial or governing board for the American Journal of Orthopedics and Arthroscopy; receives publishing royalties and financial or material support from Elsevier; and is a paid presenter or speaker for Genzyme.