Midterm Outcomes After Revision Posterior Labral Repair in Active-Duty Military Patients

Active-duty military service members experience posterior glenohumeral instability at a rate that far outpaces that of nonmilitary populations. While the outcomes after primary posterior labral repair (PLR) in this population are promising, the outcomes after revision procedures remain poorly described.

To report midterm outcomes after revision PLR in a population of active-duty military patients.

Case series; Level of evidence, 4.

Patients who underwent revision PLR from January 2011 through December 2018 by the senior surgeon with a minimum of 5 years of follow-up were deemed eligible for inclusion. Preoperative and postoperative outcome scores for the visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) score, the Single Assessment Numeric Evaluation (SANE), and the Rowe instability score as well as the rates of return to active duty and sports and the rate of recurrent instability were collected and pooled for analysis.

Overall, 21 patients with a mean follow-up of 77.95 ± 39.54 months met inclusion criteria and were available for analysis. At midterm follow-up, patients who underwent revision PLR experienced significantly improved VAS (from 7.3 ± 1.8 to 2.9 ± 2.4), ASES (from 49.5 ± 12.6 to 79.7 ± 16.7), SANE (from 45.0 ± 14.8 to 80.2 ± 20.3), and Rowe (from 37.6 ± 9.4 to 79.4 ± 24.7) scores. Over 80% of patients also achieved the minimal clinically important difference for these outcome measures; however, only 52% to 62% of patients achieved the Patient Acceptable Symptom State. The return-to-sport rate was 66.67%, and the return to active-duty rate was 80.95%.

While patients who underwent revision PLR experienced improvements in outcomes and a decrease in pain on average, they exhibited rates of return to active-duty and sports that lagged behind those demonstrated in a previous cohort that underwent a primary procedure. Furthermore, the achievement of clinically significant outcomes after revision PLR was less consistent compared with that after primary PLR.