No abstract

The reporting of midterm failure rates following arthroscopic shoulder stabilization for recurrent anterior instability of the glenohumeral joint has shown that the risk of failure may be higher with arthroscopic techniques than with traditional open methods. The use of expected value decision analysis offers an explicit, consistent, and structured means to assist the clinician in determining which stabilization technique to utilize. Decision analysis reveals that the surgical technique that is favored for a given patient depends on the value that the patient assigns to various potential outcomes following surgery, the perioperative morbidity of each of the two procedures, and the surgeon's probability of success with either technique