Surgery For Irreparable Rotator Cuff Tears using Minimally Invasive Harvested Fascia Lata

What is it about?

Irreparable tears of the shoulder tendons cause severe shoulder pain and dysfunction. The shoulder may be successfully reconstructed through an arthroscopic surgical approach of the shoulder which uses the patient's own tissue (fascia lata) harvested from the patient's thigh (arthroscopic superior capsular reconstruction using a fascia lata autograft). We have shown that this may be achieved without the need to perform a big incision on the patient's thigh. In our study we report the results in patients who have undergone this procedure using two small incisions to harvest the fascia lata and we report that most patients recovered satisfactory painful shoulder function.

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Why is it important?

Using the patient's own tissue has been shown to produce the best results in reconstructive surgery. Superior capsular reconstruction using a fascia lata graft harvested from the patient has been reported to produce the best shoulder results to date. Minimizing the impact of the harvest on the patient is very important, and our work shows that a minimally invasive harvesting approach produced good results: our patients presented very good shoulder function with a low impact on the donor site.

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