[Complication management after unsuccessful operative shoulder stabilization]

Operative repair of shoulder instability may fail because of multiple causes: a constitutional predisposition, a new trauma, incorrect diagnosis, inadequate operative techniques or inappropriate rehabilitation can be involved. The key to successful revision surgery is a thorough analysis of errors of the primary repair and the revision also has to deal with the decisive pathological factors. The management of revision surgery after failed surgery for patients with instability has to focus on the decisive pathological factors and has to take a higher complication rate and lower success rate than primary repairs into account.In agreement with the literature a retrospective investigation of 61 open revision surgeries after an average follow up of more 4 years showed recurrent dislocations in 6 patients (9.8%). One of these patients had an adequate trauma and a seizure as the cause of dislocation. After thorough examination three patients revealed signs of a primarily overlooked connective tissue disorder.