Young athletes with shoulder instability could highly benefit from arthroscopy!

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

Frank A. Cordasco, MD, MS, the senior author of this study 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.

“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. This study aptly proved that when an athlete with fewer episodes of pre-operative instability is treated with an arthroscopic stabilisation, the revision surgery rate went low as also the athlete going back to practising sport was high.

Arthroscopic shoulder stabilisation may offer the best outcomes in this group when it is performed after the first dislocation. However, additional research needs to be conducted to improve the outcomes for active high-risk athletes.
The findings of this research have been published in the Journal, American Journal of Sports Medicine.