Obesity associated with increased complications after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair
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Key takeaways:
- Obesity may be a risk factor of increased complications and readmissions after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.
- Patients had similar pain and function scores regardless of whether they were obese.
Despite similar pain and function scores, patients who were obese and underwent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair had increased rates of complications, readmissions and reoperations vs. non-obese patients, published results showed.
Alexis B. Sandler, MD, and colleagues used the Embase and PubMed databases to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of 14 studies that included 118,331 patients (mean age, 59.2 years) who underwent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.
According to the study, 47,488 patients were obese (BMI of 30 kg/m2) at the time of surgery. Outcome measures included VAS pain score, the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons scores, range of motion (ROM), complications, readmissions and reoperations.
Overall, Sandler and colleagues found all patients had decreased VAS pain scores and increased ASES scores after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. They found no significant differences in final VAS pain scores, ASES scores or ROM between patients who were obese and those who were not obese. However, researchers noted patients who were obese had higher rates of complications and postoperative admissions. The mean complication rate was 1.2% for patients who were obese and 0.59% for patients who were not obese, while the mean readmission rate was 5.9% for patients who were obese and 3.7% for those who were not obese. After meta-analysis, researchers found patients who were not obese had a decreased risk for reoperation (OR = 0.76) compared with patients who were obese.
Researchers noted these results may be important when considering arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, which is often performed in the outpatient setting.
“The higher rates of complications and postoperative admissions observed in the present study highlight the importance of considering obesity and related comorbidities when evaluating a patient’s candidacy for outpatient procedures, as many ambulatory centers may not be equipped to handle higher risk patients,” the researchers wrote in the study.
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