How can the average patient prevent failure after anterior shoulder dislocation repair surgery?

  Patients with anterior shoulder dislocation are ideal for shoulder dislocation surgery if they are middle-aged or elderly, do not normally play sports or only do recreational sports, do not have capsular ligament laxity, and do not have bone defects in the scapular glenoid or humeral head. These patients have the lowest failure rate for conventional capsule-glenoid labrum repair, with a manifest failure rate (re-dislocation) of only 5%, and with the invisible failure rate, the total failure rate may be 10%. For this group of patients, the decision of whether additional measures should be added at the time of the first routine surgery to further reduce the failure rate or whether to perform only the routine surgery at the time of the first surgery and wait for a remedial surgery after failure requires a combination of cost, risk, and benefit.  The ideal patient for anterior shoulder dislocation surgery will fail surgically in part because they have again been subjected to excessive traumatic stress, while those patients who have not been subjected to ultra-high intensity stress and have failed are primarily due to poor healing of the repaired capsule-glenoid labrum to the scapular glenoid. After capsulo-glenoid repair, not all people have satisfactory tissue healing because of the systemic and local tissue environment. Poor tissue healing must lead to recurrence of shoulder dislocation or instability under general stress conditions.  Therefore, in order to improve the outcome of this group of patients, techniques that promote healing of the joint capsule-glenoid labrum and scapular glenoid are needed. One approach is to improve the existing single-row anchor nail repair of the capsule-glenoid labrum by using a double-row anchor nail repair, which means that two rows of anchor nails are implanted at the anterior border of the scapular glenoid and at the scapular neck, and the capsule-glenoid labrum is pulled back to the scapular glenoid by these two rows of anchor nails. Compared with single-row repair, double-row repair increases the strength of the repair and, more importantly, increases the contact surface between the capsule-glenoid labrum and the scapular glenoid, which improves the healing of the capsule-glenoid labrum and the scapular glenoid (Figure 6). The double-row repair is not technically more difficult to perform, taking only half an hour longer than a normal repair, and only requires the material cost of an additional row of anchors. If the surgeon has mastered the conventional repair method and the patient can afford it, this method can be tried.  An alternative approach is bone graft augmentation surgery. During a capsule-glenoid labrum repair, an amount of bone (allograft or autogenous bone) is added to the anterior border of the scapular glenoid, which is the area where the capsule-glenoid labrum meets the scapular glenoid. Our study found that after the bone grafting procedure, the supplemental bone is gradually replaced by resorption during the healing process of the capsule-glenoid lip. During the process of bone resorption and replacement, it not only significantly promotes the healing of the capsule-glenoid labrum, but also strengthens the anterolateral capsule-glenoid labrum-scapular glenoid joint (Figure 7). Compared with conventional repair surgery, the new capsule-glenoid labrum-scapular glenoid joint formed at the end of the repair surgery with bone graft enhancement is much thicker and has a much lower chance of failure after repair. With the use of a scapular glenoid suspension graft and special minimally invasive grafting instruments, the grafting procedure is easy to perform and takes only 10-15 minutes longer than conventional repair surgery. In addition, compared with the conventional repair surgery, the bone graft enhancement surgery only increases the material cost of an allograft bone block (of course, it is possible to take autologous bone from other parts of the body to save cost), which is a good choice in terms of cost, risk and effect analysis. Currently, a duplex procedure for anterior shoulder dislocation (capsule-glenoid labrum repair and scapular glenoid bone graft) is becoming our standard procedure.