Clinical and Epidemiological Features Among Patients with Wrist Arthroscopy Surgery: A Hospital-based Study in China

To analyze the clinical and epidemiological features of patients who underwent wrist arthroscopy procedures.

This is a cross-sectional epidemiological study. The study included a cohort of patients who underwent wrist arthroscopy procedures in a national orthopaedic referral center from 1 February, 2014 to 1 February, 2019. The medical records, diagnosis, and every wrist arthroscopy procedure of all the patients were collected and reviewed. The epidemiological features, detail of the diagnoses, and the procedures of all the patients were systemically analyzed. All the patients were divided into two groups: trauma and non-trauma conditions. The complexity of the wrist arthroscopy procedure was classified into simple procedures (exploration or debridement) and complex procedures (repair or reconstruction). χ² test was used to compare proportions between the procedures of different complexity and the two groups of patients.

A total of 533 patients (332 males and 201 females) were included in this study. More than half (56%) of the patients were in the age group 21-40 and nearly two thirds (62%) of all the 533 patients were male. The diagnoses of all the patients could be classified into eight categories: (i) TFCC injury; (ii) ulnar impactions syndrome; (iii) carpal trauma (carpal bone fractures and/or carpal ligament injures); (iv) distal radius fractures; (v) carpal bone cyst or necrosis; (vi) ganglion cyst; (vii) wrist arthritis; and (viii) disorders of small joint of the hand. The most common conditions treated with wrist arthroscopy were TFCC injury (172 cases), followed by carpal trauma (125 cases) and ulnar impaction syndrome (84 cases). The simple arthroscopic procedures (exploration or debridement) account for 53% of all the procedures while complex reparative or reconstructive procedures account for 47%. There was a significant difference in the proportion between simple procedures and complex procedures in both trauma and non-traumatic patients. Repair or reconstruction procedures were more frequently performed for wrist trauma patients, whereas exploration or debridement procedures were more frequently performed for non-trauma patients.

The largest group of patients who underwent wrist arthroscopy surgery are those who complained of ulnar-sided wrist pain and the commonly conducted wrist arthroscopy procedures have evolved from simple exploration/debridement to the more complex repair or reconstruction procedures in China.