Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic & Related Surgery
Original ArticleEffect of Suture Size and Type on Bone Cutout in Transosseous Tendon Repairs
Section snippets
Methods
A Sawbone model of standardized closed-cell polyurethane foam of 15 psi (103 kPa) (FR-3715; General Plastics Manufacturing, Tacoma, WA) was used as a testing model. The compressive strength of the polyurethane foam at 23.9°C (75°F) was 5,017 kPa. A standard No. 2008-11 Richard Allan free needle (Richard Allan Medical, Worcestershire, England) was used to create 2-cm tunnels. To create the tunnel, a point was marked 1 cm in from the top edge and 1 cm down on the adjacent side. The curved needle
Results
There was no slippage in the knots during loading based on visual observation of the marks placed on the suture before testing.
With static loading, 1 No. 2 polyester suture broke at a peak load of 128 N and the remaining 6 pulled out of the tunnel. The broken suture was not included in the analysis. All 7 sutures in the remaining groups pulled out of the tunnel. The mean load to cutout (± SD) was as follows: No. 2 polyblend, 124.4 ± 9.1 N; No. 2 polyester, 114 ± 5.2 N; No. 5 polyblend, 171.7 ±
Discussion
A trend toward arthroscopic rotator cuff repair has driven the focus of development to suture anchors or similar devices, but the transosseous tunnel technique is still a viable treatment option. Successful rotator cuff repair is dependent on a myriad of factors. Gladstone et al.3 showed that fatty infiltration, particularly in the infraspinatus, has a significant effect on outcome scores and strength after rotator cuff repair. The effect of suture type on outcomes with poor tissue quality has
Conclusions
No. 2 sutures showed bone cutout at lower forces under static and cyclic loading as compared with No. 5 sutures in this Sawbone model, and no decrease in performance with regard to bone cutout was noted with polyblend as compared with polyester.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Lyn Camire, E.L.S., from their department for editorial support.
References (13)
- et al.
Prospective analysis of arthroscopic rotator cuff repair: Subgroup analysis
J Shoulder Elbow Surg
(2009) - et al.
Cyclic loading of anchor-based rotator cuff repairs: Confirmation of the tension overload phenomenon and comparison of suture anchor fixation with transosseous fixation
Arthroscopy
(1997) - et al.
Cyclic loading of transosseous rotator cuff repairs: Tension overload as a possible cause of failure
Arthroscopy
(1997) - et al.
A biomechanical comparison of 2 techniques of footprint reconstruction for rotator cuff repair: The SwiveLock-FiberChain construct versus standard double-row repair
Arthroscopy
(2009) - et al.
Arthroscopic rotator cuff repairs: An anatomic and biomechanical rationale for different suture-anchor repair configurations
Arthroscopy
(2007) - et al.
Knot security in simple sliding knots and its relationship to rotator cuff repair
Arthroscopy
(2000)
Cited by (0)
The authors report no conflict of interest.