Women with exertional compartment syndrome may have higher recovery rate after fasciotomy
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CHICAGO — Results presented here showed female athletes who underwent fasciotomy for exertional compartment syndrome may have a greater likelihood of postoperative recovery and greater symptom resolution compared with male athletes.
Dhruv Sundar Shankar, BS, and colleagues obtained demographic and perioperative data among 47 patients who underwent fasciotomy for exertional compartment syndrome between 2010 and 2020.
“We assessed outcomes by an email survey, including pain frequency, severity, return to sport and Tegner activity level,” Shankar said in his presentation at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting.
Researchers used multivariable logistic regression to identify significant predictors of postoperative return to sport and return to sport activity level, as well as multiple linear regression to identify significant predictors of recurrent leg pain.
“At baseline, our cohort largely comprised of young adults with a mean age of 30 years and mean follow-up time of 52 months,” Shankar said. “At baseline, females were younger and had a lower BMI at the time of surgery.”
Shankar noted female gender was a predictor of higher resting deep posterior compartment pressures prior to surgery. However, he added female gender was not associated with resting or exertional pressures in any other compartments. Although female sex predicted reduced pain severity with passive activities, it was not associated with reduced pain with daily activity or with sports, according to Shankar. Female sex was also not associated with symptom frequency, he said.
“In addition, female sex was predictive of higher odds of return to sport and higher odds of returning to pre-symptomatic level of competition,” Shankar said. “Furthermore, female sex was associated with greater pre- to postoperative improvement in Tegner activity level.”
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Shankar DS, et al. Paper 72. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting. March 22-26, 2022; Chicago.
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