Arthroscopic repair of type II SLAP lesions: Clinical and anatomic follow-up

The aim was to evaluate the clinical and anatomic outcome of arthroscopic repair of type II SLAP lesions.

The senior author performed isolated repairs of 25 type II SLAP lesions in 25 patients with a mean age of 40.0 ± 12 years. All tears were repaired using standard arthroscopic suture anchor repair to bone. All patients were reviewed using a standardized clinical examination by a blinded, independent observer, and using several shoulder outcome measures. Patients were evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging arthrogram at a minimum of 1-year postoperatively.

Two-tailed paired t-test were used to determine significant differences in preoperative and postoperative clinical outcomes scores. In addition, a Fisher's exact test was used.

At a mean follow-up of 54-month, the mean American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Shoulder Index (ASES) scores improved from 52.1 preoperatively to 86.1 postoperatively (P < 0.0001) and the Simple Shoulder Test (SST) scores from 7.7 to 10.6 (P < 0.0002). Twenty-two out of the 25 patients (88%) stated that they would have surgery again. Of the 21 patients who had postoperative magnetic resonance imaging arthrographys (MRAs), 9 patients (43%) demonstrated dye tracking between the labrum bone interface suggestive of a recurrent tear and 12 patients (57%) had a completely intact repair. There was no significant difference in ASES, SST, and patient satisfaction scores in patients with recurrent or intact repairs.

Arthroscopic repair of type II SLAP lesions demonstrated improvements in clinical outcomes. However, MRA imaging demonstrated 43% of patients with recurrent tears. MRA results do not necessarily correlate with clinical outcome.