Background: The relationship between the imaging parameters on postoperative ultrasound (US) other than repaired tendon integrity with clinical outcome such as postoperative residual pain has not been well defined.
Purpose: To investigate whether the repaired tendon thickness and subdeltoid fluid collection after rotator cuff repair are correlated with early postoperative clinical outcome.
Material and methods: This retrospective study included 54 patients who underwent repair of the arthroscopic rotator cuff either by suture-bridge or single-row technique and postoperative US. We assessed the relationship between the sonographic parameters, including repaired supraspinatus tendon thickness and subdeltoid fluid collection, with the clinical outcome represented by the Korean Shoulder Scoring system (KSS) score using correlation coefficients (R). Also, the subgroup analysis was done to assess the differences by surgical technique and patients' age.
Results: There was a significant inverse relationship between the amount of subdeltoid fluid collection and degree of self-assessed pain improvement of the patients (P < 0.05), although every KSS category showed statistically insignificant tendency of inverse relationship with the fluid thickness. However, there was no statistically significant relationship between the thickness of repaired supraspinatus tendon and KSS scores. In patients aged >60 years, a statistically significant inverse relationship between thickness of subdeltoid fluid collection and difference value of the KSS scores in category of function was observed with both interpreters (P = 0.015 and P = 0.04, respectively).
Conclusion: Subdeltoid fluid collection measured on US after repair of the arthroscopic rotator cuff in the early postoperative period has significant association with the patients' subjective clinical outcome.
Keywords: Korean Shoulder Scoring system (KSS); Ultrasound; rotator cuff repair; single-row technique; suture-bridge technique.