Trends in Surgical Management of Shoulder Instability

Optimal surgical management of anterior shoulder instability remains controversial. There is a need to assess the most recent trends for primary and revision shoulder stabilization surgery using a national database significantly larger than those previously utilized.

Most shoulder stabilization procedures are performed arthroscopically. Examining revision procedures, we hypothesized that open procedures would result in decreased revision stabilizations compared with arthroscopic procedures and that most revision procedures would be open Bankart or bone transfer procedures regardless of the index procedure technique.

Descriptive epidemiology study.

The MarketScan Database was searched using International Classification of Diseases-Ninth Revision (ICD-9) and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes to identify patients who underwent any shoulder stabilization procedure between 2008 and 2012. Regression analysis was used to evaluate trends between patient groups. The Cochran-Armitage trend test was used to identify differences in trends seen yearly. Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated to compare the likelihood of undergoing a revision stabilization procedure.

A total of 66,564 shoulder stabilization procedures were identified from 2008 through 2012: 60,248 arthroscopic stabilization procedures (90.5%) and 6316 open stabilization procedures (9.5%), including 1623 bone block procedures. Arthroscopic stabilization procedures increased in total number and percentage of all procedures in each year of the study. Bone block procedures increased in number each year, although other open procedures decreased during the study period. Males underwent more stabilization procedures, while patients between the ages of 10 and 19 years were most likely to undergo any procedure. Patients who underwent bone block stabilization were significantly less likely to undergo a second stabilization procedure during the study period when compared with open Bankart repair (OR, 0.582; 95% CI, 0.405-0.836; P < .05) and arthroscopic Bankart repair (OR, 0.587; 95% CI, 0.418-0.824; P < .05). No statistically significant difference in revision stabilization was seen when comparing arthroscopic versus open Bankart repair (OR, 0.934; 95% CI, 0.863-1.139).

Although the number of arthroscopic shoulder stabilization surgeries continues to increase, our data show a consistent increase, not seen in prior studies, in the number of bone block procedures. Contrary to some studies, there was no significant difference in the likelihood of a second procedure between patients initially undergoing arthroscopic compared with open Bankart repair.