A grant to present in Kuala Lumpur
Congratulations to fellow Kristine Italia, who has received a Young Orthopaedic Surgeon (YOS) Grant to present her paper on arthroscopic acromioclavicular joint reconstruction at the APOA conference in Kuala Lumpur.
What APOA is and what a YOS grant does
The Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association is the regional body that links the national orthopaedic associations of the Asia Pacific. Its conferences gather surgeons from across the region to present research, run instructional courses and compare how conditions are managed in very different health systems. Grants of this kind exist because presenting at an international meeting is expensive and surgeons early in their careers rarely have research budgets of their own. Funding the travel means the work is heard and discussed by people outside the unit that produced it, which is how a technique is tested by opinion beyond its originators.
The technique
The paper describes an all-arthroscopic technique using an Arthrex dog bone prosthesis, two ABS tightropes, an internal brace, and a tendon allograft wrapped around the coracoid and the clavicle. An allograft is donated human tissue, used here to rebuild a ligament rather than taking tissue from elsewhere in the patient's own body.
Why the extra reconstruction
The acromioclavicular joint can move in two directions once its restraints are disrupted: up and down, and front to back. Older reconstruction techniques concentrated principally on the coracoclavicular ligaments, which control the up and down component but do comparatively little to control front-to-back movement.
Published series report late failure of the construct in at least 30% of these reconstructions, and the proposition here is that addressing front-to-back instability as well as up-and-down instability is associated with better results. Individual results vary, and the comparison is with historical techniques rather than against a control group in this work.
Related information
- Our post on arthroscopic ACJ reconstruction and our AC joint arthrosis page.
- Shoulder fellowship
- Research
- Publications