Patients With Intact Shoulder Superior Capsular Reconstruction Grafts on Ultrasound Show Significant Improvement in Functional Outcomes at Minimum 2-Year Follow-up.

Purpose: To assess the utility of using dynamic ultrasound for postoperative evaluation after superior capsular reconstruction (SCR) by evaluating graft integrity and its correlation with clinical outcomes at a minimum 2-year follow-up.

Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted to identify patients who underwent SCR between July 2015 and July 2020 with a minimum 2-year clinical and ultrasound follow-up. Clinical outcome measures included Simple Shoulder (SS) and American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeon (ASES) scores. Integrity of the SCR graft was evaluated by dynamic ultrasound.

Results: We evaluated 22 shoulders in 21 patients with a mean follow-up of 44.8 months (range, 24-71 months). The graft was found to be intact by ultrasound evaluation in 82% (18/22). Patients with intact grafts had higher mean SS (11.6 vs 7.8,  = .00079) and ASES (91.2 vs 64.1,  = .0296) scores at latest follow-up compared to those with failed grafts. Those with intact grafts also had significant improvement in SS (3.7 vs 11.6, < .00001) and ASES (23.2 vs 91.2, < .00001) scores at latest follow-up compared to their preoperative scores. In contrast, patients with graft failure had no significant improvement in SS (6.3 vs 9.0,  = .123) and ASES (40.4 vs 58.3,  = .05469) scores at latest follow-up compared to their preoperative scores. There was no difference between clinical outcomes at 6 to 12 months vs latest follow-up for both SS ( = .11,  = .5) and ASES ( = .27,  = .21) scores.

Conclusions: SCR grafts were found by ultrasound to be intact in 82% of cases. Patients with intact grafts on ultrasound had significant improvement in functional outcome scores while those with graft failure did not. Functional outcome scores suggest that maximal recovery from this procedure occurs by 6 to 12 months.

Level Of Evidence: Level IV, therapeutic case series.