Rotator Cuff Tears: Augmentation of a Rotator Cuff Repair With a Graft Animation
Rotator Cuff Tears: Augmentation of a Rotator Cuff Repair With a Graft Animation
This animated video demonstrates a rotator cuff repair augmentation with a graft for the treatment of a rotator cuff tear.
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Rotator Cuff Tears: Augmentation of a Rotator Cuff Repair With a Biologic Skin Graft Animation
This animation demonstrates an augmentation of a rotator cuff repair with a graft to treat a rotator cuff tear. After a rotator cuff tear is repaired, a graft can be placed on top of the repair to provide further support and incorporate into the tendon to improve healing.
A graft can either be a biologic skin graft taken from a donor, called an allograft, or a tendon graft taken from the patient, most often from the biceps tendon near the shoulder, called an autograft. This type of graft is compressed and obtained during a biceps tenodesis, a surgery that cuts the biceps tendon and reattaches it elsewhere on the upper arm bone. This procedure is commonly performed with a rotator cuff repair to reduce pain at the shoulder. The part of the tendon that is removed can be used for an augmentation procedure. Otherwise, it is discarded.
In this video, a biologic skin graft is used. The skin graft is first prepared with sutures at all 4 corners of the graft, which are then threaded through the 4 holes of an instrument called a graft spreader. The graft spreader is used to fold the graft in half and pass it into the shoulder through a plastic tube called a cannula. Once inside the shoulder, the skin graft is unfolded and placed on top of the rotator cuff repair.
A small soft-body anchor is inserted through the top of the graft to secure the graft to the rotator cuff tendon. Tension is applied to the sutures attached to this anchor to secure the graft and anchor in place. The free end of the suture is then cut off. The same steps are repeated for a second anchor. The sutures securing the graft to the graft spreader are then cut off and the graft spreader is removed.
The sutures at the bottom corners of the graft are then threaded through 2 hard-body anchors, which are inserted into the upper arm bone to hold the skin graft in place. The rotator cuff repair augmentation is now complete.