Reporting in the September 2, 2015 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, European researchers Moroder et al. found that 7 of 45 patients (17.5%) without substantial glenoid bone loss who underwent open Bankart repairs had a recurrence of instability during an average 22 years of follow-up.
This high failure rate is in line with findings from previous studies, but the authors include data indicating that, compared to patients who did not experience recurrent instability, “the recurrence of instability did not appear to significantly affect the subjective and objective outcome scores or the degree of work and sports impairment.”
The study found an unsurprising association between higher shoulder-specific activity levels and an increased risk for recurrence of instability. In fact, three of the seven late failures occurred during a high-energy sports accident. Etiologically, the authors hypothesize that “a lifestyle with high demands on the shoulders leads to weakening of the Bankart repair over time because of repetitive stress of the anterior capsulolabral complex.”
