Abstract
Arthroscopic rotator cuff repair was developed with advances in arthroscopic techniques and it was used successfully to treat rotator cuff tears. However, there was little known about postoperative accurate second look evaluation for arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. The aim of this study was to evaluate the current arthroscopic rotator cuff repair technique by second look arthroscopy in the cases of good clinical results.We evaluated 11 patients (8 males and 3 females), who had undergone arthroscopic rotator cuff repair for full-thickness rotator cuff tears. The average age of the time of the surgery was 61.5 years old(49-70 years old). The second look evaluation was composed of 6 different items: hypertrophy of intra-articular synovial tissue, articular side integrity at the repaired rotator cuff, hypertrophy of intra-bursal synovial tissue, bursal side integrity at the repaired rotator cuff, bursal tissue adhesion and appearance of coraco-acromial arch.Full-thickness tear was observed in 2 cases and partial-thickness tear was observed in 5 cases. Complete rotator cuff repair was seen only in 4 cases. 4 cases of hypertrophy of intra-articular synovial tissue, 4 cases of hypertrophy of intra-bursal synovial tissue, 7 cases of bursal tissue adhesion and 10 cases of newly formed coraco-acromial ligaments were recognized. Bursal tissue adhesion and remained rotator cuff tear might be one of the problems of current arthroscopic rotator cuff repair technique.
