SAN DIEGO – Patients who received a corticosteroid injection within 6 months prior to rotator cuff repair were more likely to undergo a revision rotator cuff surgery within the following 3 years, results from a large database study show.
“Corticosteroid injections are frequently utilized in the nonoperative management of rotator cuff tears,” researchers led by Sophia A. Traven, MD, wrote in an abstract presented during a poster session at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. “However, recent literature suggests that injections may reduce biomechanical strengths of tendons and ligaments in animal models.”
In an effort to examine the effect of preoperative shoulder injections on the rate of revision cuff repair following arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, the researchers retrospectively reviewed MarketScan claims data between 2010 and 2014 to identify 4,959 patients with an ICD-9 diagnosis of a rotator cuff tear with subsequent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (CPT 29827).
They used multivariable logistic regression to compare the odds of reoperation between groups, while controlling for certain demographic and comorbid variables, including age and gender, tobacco use, diabetes, and the Charlson comorbidity index score.
Dr. Traven, an orthopedic surgeon at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, and her associates reported that 392 of the 4,959 patients required rotator cuff repair revision within the following 3 years. Compared with those who did not require revision, those who did were older (a mean age of 53 vs. 49 years, respectively), more likely to be smokers (7% vs. 4%), and more likely to receive any injection prior to rotator cuff repair (36% vs 25%; P less than .0001 for all associations).
(odds ratio, 1.822), followed by those who received an injection 0-3 months before the primary repair (OR, 1.375), and those who received an injection 6-12 months before the primary repair (OR, 1.237).
“The risk of revision rotator cuff repair remains elevated for 6 months following a shoulder injection,” the researchers concluded in their poster. “Consideration should therefore be given to minimizing preoperative injections in patients who may require rotator cuff repair.”
They reported having no financial disclosures.