Arthroscopy may benefit athletes with shoulder instability

Turns out, young athletes with shoulder instability might benefit from arthroscopy.

According to researchers who presented their work at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in San Diego, the outcomes may be improved by proper patient selection and reserving arthroscopic stabilisation for athletes with fewer incidents of pre-operative instability.

The senior author of this study, Frank A. Cordasco, MD, MS and his colleagues from the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City presented a series of patients with shoulder instability between the ages of 14 and 20 who were treated with arthroscopic anterior stabilisation performed in the beach chair position by a single surgeon.

The primary outcomes were the rates of revision surgery and return to sport at a minimum follow-up of two years.

"Our study highlights the importance for young athletes with shoulder instability, undergoing a thorough preoperative evaluation to determine the number of instability events and to obtain appropriate advanced imaging when the significant bone loss is suspected," said Cordasco.

The study demonstrates that when the high-risk young athlete with fewer episodes of pre-operative instability is treated with an arthroscopic stabilisation, the revision surgery rate is low and the return to sports rate is high.

Arthroscopic shoulder stabilisation may offer the best outcomes in this group when it is performed after the first dislocation. Additional research needs to be performed to continue to improve the outcomes for this challenging group of young, active high-risk athletes.

The full findings are present in the Journal- American Journal of Sports Medicine.