On the faculty
Associate Professor Cutbush attended the Australian Orthopaedic Association Continuing Orthopaedic Education Meeting in Canberra as faculty, and gave two presentations.
The talks
- The Arthroscopic Latarjet Procedure, covering results and the advantages and disadvantages of the arthroscopic Latarjet in difficult shoulder instability.
- The Difficult Glenoid and How to Get Access, on the operative approach for total shoulder replacement.
Also speaking at the meeting were the Olympic rowing gold medallist Kim Brennan and her coach Lyall McCarthy.
What a continuing education meeting is for
Surgeons in practice are required to undertake continuing professional development, and meetings of this kind are one of the ways it is done. The Australian Orthopaedic Association runs structured education meetings at which faculty present on defined topics across the specialty, with lectures, case discussion and time for questions. Faculty are surgeons invited to speak on areas they work in, and the sessions are pitched at surgeons who already perform the operations being discussed. Attendance is recorded against professional development requirements.
The arthroscopic Latarjet procedure
The Latarjet operation treats shoulder instability where the front rim of the socket has lost bone, which typically happens after repeated dislocations. A small piece of bone, the coracoid process, is moved with its attached tendon to the front of the socket and fixed there. This restores the bony rim and adds a restraining effect from the transferred tendon as it passes across the front of the joint. The operation has traditionally been performed open; the arthroscopic version carries out the same transfer through keyhole portals. It is technically demanding, and it is generally used where a soft tissue repair alone would be unlikely to hold the shoulder in place. Individual results vary.
Reaching the glenoid in shoulder replacement
The glenoid is the socket of the shoulder, set deep against the chest wall and surrounded by muscle, with nerves and vessels close in front of it. In a shoulder replacement the surgeon has to see and reach the whole of it in order to prepare the bone and seat the component accurately, and the position of that component affects how the joint moves and how load is carried afterwards. Access is harder in a stiff shoulder, in a heavily built patient, and where the socket has worn unevenly or lost bone. For those reasons exposure is treated as a subject in its own right rather than a preliminary. Individual results vary.