Clinical outcomes similar with arthroscopic rotator cuff repair alone or with acromioplasty

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Mascarenhas R, MacDonald P, Lapner P, et al. Arthroscopic rotator cuff repair with and without arthroscopic acromioplasty in the treatment of full-thickness rotator cuff tears. Paper SS-35. Presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Arthroscopy Association of North America. April 24-27, 2008. Washington. WASHINGTON Short-term study results indicate there were no significant differences in the clinical outcomes between arthroscopic rotator cuff repairs performed with and without arthroscopic acromioplasty in patients with full-thickness tears. In a randomized controlled trial presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Arthroscopy Association of North America, here, Randy Mascarenhas, MD, and colleagues compared the results of 68 patients with full-thickness rotator cuff tears who were treated with either arthroscopic rotator cuff repair with acromioplasty or repair alone, and had a minimum follow-up of 6 months. The investigators discovered that both treatment groups demonstrated significant improvements at 3 and 6 months postoperatively compared to their preoperative American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons and Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index scores. Still, they found no significant differences between the groups at the same postoperative time points. The study also revealed four failures, all of which were in the non-acromioplasty group. The investigation included adult patients with full-thickness rotator cuff tears measuring up to 4 cm. All of the patients failed after 6 months of prior conservative treatment. Both treatment groups underwent the same postoperative rehab protocol, according to the study abstract. Of the four failures seen in the non-acromioplasty group, two patients had Type II acromions and two patients had Type III acromions. 'All of these underwent revision arthroscopic cuff repair acromioplasties or an acromioplasty while the cuff was still intact,' Mascarenhas said.