Long-term prognoses of patients with and without re-rupture after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.
Kazuo Saito, Tomonori Kenmoku, Kyoko Hirota and 1 others
PMID 34177109WHAT IT FOUND
Patients whose rotator cuff re-ruptured after surgery still improved, but their shoulder flexion and abduction stayed worse than patients without re-rupture.
Pain and daily-life scores did not differ at the final follow-up.
Key findings
01Five cases, 17% of the 28 patients, had re-rupture identified within 3 months.
02The re-rupture group showed lower shoulder flexion and abduction than the control group, with the clearest difference at 24 months.
03In the re-rupture group, pain and several shoulder motions showed significant improvement by 6 months, and some measures improved beyond 6 months.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study had only 28 patients, and only 5 had re-rupture, so the re-rupture results are unstable. Patients who could not be followed for 24 months were excluded, so it says nothing about people with shorter follow-up. All patients had surgery and occupational therapy, and the study did not compare different rehabilitation approaches, so it cannot show that occupational therapy caused the outcomes. The groups were formed by whether re-rupture occurred, not by assigned treatment.
Declared interests
The authors reported no funding and no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that a re-rupture means poor long-term daily-life recovery. The re-rupture group still improved in pain and several shoulder motions, and daily-life-related scores did not differ from the control group at the final follow-up. Do not use this paper to choose a specific rehabilitation protocol, because all patients had surgery and occupational therapy and no therapy approach was compared.