Complications and Retears Following Arthroscopic Repair of Full Thickness Rotator Cuff Tears

Arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (ARCR) has become the gold-standard with regard to treatment of rotator cuff tears amenable to repair. However, the literature lacks a systematic review that reports the overall incidence of complications and the retear rate following ARCR of full-thickness rotator cuff tears. The purpose of this study is to determine the incidence of complications and retear rate after arthroscopic repair of full thickness rotator cuff tears (FTRCT). The following is the study design: Systematic Review, Level of Evidence IV. A systematic review of medical databases was performed. All studies that reported outcomes and complications following arthroscopic repair of FTRCT were eligible for inclusion. Complication and retear rates were extracted from the included studies. Seventy-six articles (6,351 patients) were included. The overall complication rate was 4.6%. The most common complication reported was the loss of range of motion/shoulder stiffness at a rate of 9.2%, followed by persistent pain (6.1%), and adhesive capsulitis (4.0%). The use of postoperative imaging (MRI, CT arthrogram, Ultrasound) in 57 of the 76 included studies revealed an image-proven retear rate of 21.1%. Larger/massive cuff tears had a higher retear rate. Arthroscopic repair of FTRCT has a low complication rate of 4.6% with postoperative stiffness and residual pain being the most common. The image-proven retear rate was 21.1%, while the reoperation rate for symptomatic retears was 0.5%. The risk of a patient needing to undergo a revision rotator cuff repair is very low as retears very rarely require operative intervention.