Arthroscopic Reduction of a Chronically Dislocated Reversed Shoulder Arthroplasty

Abstract

We present the case of a 64-year-old female patient who had a traumatic dislocation of a reversed shoulder arthroplasty that was unnoticed for 5 weeks and that was reduced arthroscopically. Arthroscopy of the shoulder, as in other joints with prostheses, can facilitate the treatment of conditions that would otherwise require the use of open surgery to solve them and that might become more frequent because of the widespread use of reversed shoulder arthroplasties, which have a high rate of dislocation.

Arthroscopic Circumferential Release for Stiff Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty

“…The first Technical Note related to therapeutic use of arthroscopy on RSA showed that the technique could facilitate the reduction of chronically dislocated shoulder prosthesis, thus avoiding open surgery. 4 The technique here described is useful to better analyze prosthetic joint low-grade infection and to procure multiple tissue samples at the boneeimplant interfaces. This approach can be useful considering that infection could be present although clinical signs and laboratory tests are negative.…”

“…The first Technical Note related to therapeutic use of arthroscopy on RSA showed that the technique could facilitate the reduction of chronically dislocated shoulder prosthesis, thus avoiding open surgery. 4 …”

“…Arthroscopy has successfully been used to treat stiffness affecting prosthesis in different joints, such as the knee, 1 as well as different complications of shoulder arthroplasty. [2][3][4][5] However, the arthroscopic technique to examine the RSA and to perform a standardized arthroscopic articular release technique has not yet been reported. The purpose of this Technical Note is to describe an arthroscopic technique of complete RSA examination aimed to identify potential causes of RSA stiffness and to perform a subsequent circumferential release of the prosthetic shoulder joint (Video 1).…”