Editorial Commentary: One Year Is Enough to Know the Short-Term Outcomes of Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair, but What Happens to the Sugaya III Tendon After a Year?

Abstract

There has been a growing body of evidence that 1- and 2-year patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have little variance after many orthopaedic interventions, including lower extremity arthroplasty, shoulder arthroplasty, anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, and, of course, rotator cuff repair. The upsides of this are huge: better ability to achieve high follow-up rates and faster iterative research progressing our field. This study shows an increase in the retear rate after , rotator cuff repair between 1 and 2 years, but in only 4% of patients. This corresponds roughly to the number of patients whose PROs decline between 1 and 2 years, but this is offset by a similar number of patients whose PROs improve during that time. Yet again, it seems that 1 year captures the outcome of a given cohort well. However, this study also honed in on the Sugaya III tendons, as this subgroup had 10 of 30 patients progress to Sugaya IV/V between 1 and 2 years, with a corresponding decrease in PROs. Although previous work has shown Sugaya III tendons to be more protective against the natural progression of arthritis, head migration, and fatty infiltration than IV/V tendons, patients with Sugaya III may not be immune to disease progression. As always, we must do better at getting the rotator cuff to heal.