Latarjet procedure for treating shoulder injury comes to India

The Arthroscopic Latarjet procedure for the treatment of dislocation of shoulder, a common sports injury, will be introduced in India tomorrow at the Sports Injury Centre, Safdarjung Hospital here.
The procedure using suture button fixation will be performed on a patient suffering from recurrent dislocation of shoulders by its pioneer Dr Pascal Boileau from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Traumatology at the Medical University of Nice-Sophia-Antipolis, Nice in France.
The procedure, besides 25 knee and shoulder arthroscopy surgeries, will be telecast live at Hotel Grand in Vasant Kunj as part of the 4th Edition of the Delhi Arthroscopy Course.

"Recurrent dislocation of shoulders is a very common sports injury among Indian athletes, especially wrestlers and other sports requiring overhead activities.
"In this condition the labrum, a soft tissue cartilaginous structure which provides stability to the shoulder gets damaged. Due to recurrent dislocation of a shoulder, the joint glenoid cavity of the patient becomes flat due to bone loss," said Dr Deepak Choudhary, Director of the Sports Injury Centre, Safdarjung Hospital.
He said, "As part of the Arthroscopic Latarjet procedure, a block of bone is harvested from the coracoid process, and is arthroscopily fixed at the sight of glenoid boneloss using suture buttons."

"This is a keyhole procedure involving only two to three 1-cm incisions. As of now, the procedure is performed at a majority of the centres by an open technique which entails 5-7 cm of skin incision," Dr Choudhary said.

According to Dr Sanjay Kataria, a professor at the Sports Injury Centre, the basic advantage of the technique is less morbidity, lesser chances of infection and faster rehabilitation.
"Also, the technique does not use screws which have the inherent disadvantage of screw breakage and migration and occasional infection," Dr Kataria said.
This technique is being demonstrated outside Europe for the first time and will immensely benefit the sportsmen who sustain such injuries, Dr Kataria said.