Surgical treatments of atraumatic avascular necrosis of the shoulder

Humeral head atraumatic avascular necrosis is a rare diagnosis. It concerns young patients with a high functional demand. The treatments are mostly surgical. The radiographic classification of Cruess assesses the severity of the humeral head avascular necrosis and guides surgical indications. This chapter reports a review of the literature based on meta-analyses and clinical series. Surgical treatments may be conservative or prosthetic. Conservative treatments include core decompression, bone grafting and arthroscopic debridement. Prosthetic replacements are performed by resurfacing, hemiarthroplasty or total arthroplasty. For low-grade asvascular necrosis, core decompression may be functionally effective and doesn't impair later surgical procedures. For high grades, prosthetic replacements achieve good functional outcomes. Hemiarthroplasty should be preferred if the glenoid cartilage is intact, with low rates of wear complications and better long-term outcome than shoulder arthroplasty.