Background:

The rotator cuff injury it is one of the most common causes of pain and functional disability of the shoulder with an annual reported incidence of 4.5 million cases in the United States. It is one of the leading causes of pain of shoulder in patients older than 60 years. In Mexico, there are no reports of the incidence or the results of arthroscopic repair of massive rotator cuff lesions alone or combined with other procedures.

Objective:

To evaluate the clinical evolution of patients post-surgery of arthroscopic rotator cuff massive injury repair AR-RCMI alone or in combination with other techniques.

Methods:

Evaluation of records of patients with AR-RCMI post-surgery, comparing the results of the scales: simple shoulder test and VAS before and after surgery with a follow up of 2.6 years. The combined procedures were acromioplasty, tenotomy of biceps or both.

Results:

65 patients with diagnosis of massive injury; with an average age of 62.8 years (SD ± 9. 42), 27.7% were men and 72.3% women. The evaluation was conducted in four groups: arthroscopic repair (AR); arthroscopic repair + biceps tenotomy (AR + BT); arthroscopic repair + acromioplasty (AR + A) and arthroscopic repair + biceps tenotomy + acromioplasty (AR + BTA). All groups showed significant reduction in pain: AR (-44.1%, p = 0.0001), AR + A (-36.9%, p = 0.001), AR + BT (-36.3%, p = 0.0001), AR + BT + A (-38.5%, p = 0.0001). All groups had significant improvement in function with the SST scale.