What’s New in Foot & Ankle Surgery 2018
Every month, JBJS publishes a Specialty Update—a review of the most pertinent and impactful studies published in the orthopaedic literature during the previous year in 13 subspecialties. Click here for a collection of all OrthoBuzz Specialty Update summaries.
This month, OrthoBuzz asked Sheldon Lin, MD, a co-author of the May 16, 2018 Specialty Update on Foot and Ankle Surgery, to select the five most clinically compelling findings from among the 60 studies cited in the article.
Ankle Arthroscopy
—A recent Level-I study1 investigated the efficacy of preemptive local anesthesia in combination with general or spinal anesthesia in 80 patients undergoing ankle arthroscopy. The authors found that patients receiving local anesthesia did not require any on-demand pain medication and reported lower pain intensity up to 24 hours post-arthroscopy. Patients in the spinal anesthesia-only group had better pain control than did patients receiving general anesthesia only.
Hallux Rigidus
—While arthrodesis of the first metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint is the preferred treatment for this condition among most providers, concerns over medial column lengthening and degenerative changes at adjacent joints have led to continued interest in MTP arthroplasty. In a 15-year follow-up of 52 patients randomized to MTP joint arthrodesis or arthroplasty2, Stone et al. found that those who underwent arthrodesis had less pain, fewer revisions, and greater satisfaction than those in the arthroplasty group, with equal function scores. On the basis of these data, arthrodesis remains the treatment of choice for severe hallux rigidus.
Total Ankle Arthroplasty (TAA)
—In a prospective study of 451 patients with an average follow-up of 4.5 years, Lefrancois et al. compared clinical and functional outcomes of 4 TAA prostheses: the HINTEGRA implant, the Agility implant, the Mobility implant, and the Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement (STAR). Patients with the Mobility implant had less improvement in scores on the Ankle Osteoarthritis Scale, while the other 3 implants had comparable results.
—In a matched cohort study of more than 3,000 patients examining the complication rates of TAA versus those of arthrodesis, Odum et al. found that patients undergoing arthrodesis had a 1.8-times higher risk of a major perioperative complication than those undergoing TAA.
Plantar Fasciitis
—In a randomized controlled trial of 50 patients investigating the efficacy of botulinum toxin for treating plantar fasciitis3, Ahmad et al. found that patients in the botulinum toxin group had improved function and pain scores compared with the placebo group at 6 and 12 months post-injection, as well as a lower rate of surgical treatment for recalcitrant symptoms (0% versus 12%).
References
- Liszka H, Gądek A. Preemptive local anesthesia in ankle arthroscopy. Foot Ankle Int. 2016 Dec;37(12):1326-32. Epub 2016 Sep 12.
- Stone OD, Ray R, Thomson CE, Gibson JNA. Long-term follow-up of arthrodesis vs total joint arthroplasty for hallux rigidus. Foot Ankle Int. 2017 Apr;38(4):375-80. Epub 2016 Dec 20.
- Ahmad J, Ahmad SH, Jones K. Treatment of plantar fasciitis with botulinum toxin. Foot Ankle Int. 2017 Jan;38(1):1-7. Epub 2016 Oct 1.
Does Residency Prepare Surgeons for Early Orthopaedic Practice?
One goal of an orthopaedic surgery residency is to prepare residents for the procedures they will perform when they are attendings. Yet, until the retrospective cohort study by Kohring et al. in the April 4, 2018 issue of The Journal, it remained unclear how similar a resident’s surgical case mix was compared to the cases attendings saw in early practice. Kohring et al. used data from both the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (ABOS) to compare the types of procedures residents performed between 2010 and 2012 to the cases junior attendings submitted for the ABOS Part II examination between 2013 and 2015. The authors then categorized the cases by CPT codes and split them into adult and pediatric categories to allow for further comparison.
Here are a few interesting findings from the study:
- More than half of all adult and pediatric procedures performed during residency and by early-career attendings fell within the top 10 CPT code categories.
- Knee and shoulder arthroscopy were the most commonly performed cases in adults during both residency and early practice.
- Residents take part in total knee and total hip arthroplasties much more frequently than do attendings in early practice.
- Attendings in early practice treat more than twice the number of proximal femur fractures than do residents during residency.
- Residents are exposed to a much higher rate of spinal fusion cases than are seen by early-practice attendings.
Although the authors conclude that the “similarity between residency and early practice experience is generally strong,” this study highlights some of the disparities between the two cohorts, and these findings may inform further research aimed at improving training for orthopaedic surgeons. By themselves, however, these results should not be used to change the experience residents have during their training. The authors mention the limitations inherent when comparing these two cohorts, and I can testify that my clinical practice has evolved tremendously in the 3 years since I started as an attending.
Furthermore, with more than 90% of orthopaedic residents going on to complete a subspecialty fellowship immediately after residency, it is safe to say that the degree of similarity between residency and attending case experience will vary from surgeon to surgeon.
Chad A. Krueger, MD
JBJS Deputy Editor for Social Media
JBJS 100: Arthroscopic Supraspinatus Repair and OCD of the Talus
Under one name or another, The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery has published quality orthopaedic content spanning three centuries. In 1919, our publication was called the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery, and the first volume of that journal was Volume 1 of what we know today as JBJS.
Thus, the 24 issues we turn out in 2018 will constitute our 100th volume. To help celebrate this milestone, throughout the year we will be spotlighting 100 of the most influential JBJS articles on OrthoBuzz, making the original content openly accessible for a limited time.
Unlike the scientific rigor of Journal content, the selection of this list was not entirely scientific. About half we picked from “JBJS Classics,” which were chosen previously by current and past JBJS Editors-in-Chief and Deputy Editors. We also selected JBJS articles that have been cited more than 1,000 times in other publications, according to Google Scholar search results. Finally, we considered “activity” on the Web of Science and The Journal’s websites.
We hope you enjoy and benefit from reading these groundbreaking articles from JBJS, as we mark our 100th volume. Here are two more:
Arthroscopic Repair of Full-Thickness Tears of the Supraspinatus
P Boileau, N Brassart, D J Watkinson, M. Carles, A M Hatzidakis, S G Krishnan: JBJS, 2005 June; 87 (6): 1229
This evaluation of the arthroscopic tension-band suture technique demonstrated that arthroscopic repair of an isolated supraspinatus detachment delivers good to excellent functional and tendon-healing results—and that the absence of tendon healing does not necessarily compromise pain relief and patient satisfaction.
Transchondral Fractures (Osteochondritis Dissecans) of the Talus
A L Berndt and M Harty: JBJS, 1959 Sept; 41 (6): 988
Berndt and Harty’s elegant clinical and anatomic study included a four-stage radiological classification scheme for traumatic talar lesions that still provides a valid foundation for decision-making with regard to operative or nonoperative treatment.
What’s New in Adult Reconstructive Knee Surgery 2018
Every month, JBJS publishes a Specialty Update—a review of the most pertinent and impactful studies published in the orthopaedic literature during the previous year in 13 subspecialties. Click here for a collection of all OrthoBuzz Specialty Update summaries.
This month, Chad A. Krueger, MD, JBJS Deputy Editor for Social Media, selected the most clinically compelling findings from among the more than 150 studies cited in the January 17, 2018 Specialty Update on Adult Reconstructive Knee Surgery.
Nonoperative Knee OA Treatment
—Intra-articular corticosteroid injections are commonly administered to mitigate pain and inflammation in knee osteoarthritis (OA). However, a randomized controlled trial of 140 patients found that 2 years of triamcinolone injections, when compared with saline injections, resulted in a significantly greater degree of cartilage loss without significant differences in symptoms.1
Non-Arthroplasty Operative Management
—Knee arthroscopy continues to be largely ineffective for pain relief and functional improvement in knee OA. A randomized controlled trial found no evidence that debridement of unstable chondral flaps found at the time of arthroscopic meniscectomy improves clinical outcomes.
—Cartilage restoration procedures continue to show varying degrees of success. Long-term results from a randomized trial demonstrated no significant differences in joint survivorship and function between patients undergoing microfracture versus autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) at 15 years of follow-up. Nearly 50% of patients in both groups had radiographic evidence of early knee OA.
Periprosthetic Joint Infection
—Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) remains a leading cause of failure following total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Successful treatment requires accurate diagnosis, and alpha-defensin was found to be both sensitive and specific in the diagnosis of PJI. However, it was not significantly superior to leukocyte esterase (LE) in cases of obvious infection.
—Reported rates of reinfection after 2-stage reimplantation for treatment of a first PJI can be as high as 19%. A 3-month course of oral antibiotics following 2-stage procedures significantly improved infection-free survival without complications.2
Post-TKA Complications from Opioids
—Amid ongoing concerns about opioid misuse, two studies3 suggested that preoperative opioid use was found to be an independent predictor of increased length of stay, complications, readmissions, and less pain relief following TKA.
References
- McAlindon TE, LaValley MP, Harvey WF, Price LL, Driban JB, Zhang M,Ward RJ. Effect of intra-articular triamcinolone vs saline on knee cartilage volume and pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a randomized clinical trial. 2017 May 16;317(19):1967-75.
- Frank JM, Kayupov E, Moric M, Segreti J, Hansen E, Hartman C, Okroj K,Belden K, Roslund B, Silibovsky R, Parvizi J, Della Valle CJ; Knee Society Research Group. The Mark Coventry, MD, Award: oral antibiotics reduce reinfection after two-stage exchange: a multicenter, randomized controlled trial. Clin Orthop Relat Res.2017 Jan;475(1):56-61.
- Rozell JC, Courtney PM, Dattilo JR, Wu CH, Lee GC. Preoperative opiate use independently predicts narcotic consumption and complications after total joint arthroplasty. J Arthroplasty.2017 Sep;32(9):2658-62. Epub 2017 Apr 12.
Hip Arthroscopy: What and Who Account for Rising Utilization?
Hip arthroscopy for labral pathology and cam and pincer impingement has become increasingly established as an effective procedure in the hands of experienced surgeons. However, as with all technically complex orthopaedic procedures, success entails not only sound technique, but also appropriate patient selection, meticulous pre- and intraoperative setup, and appropriate use of intraoperative fluoroscopy. Thankfully, we have a community of leaders in arthroscopy who share and teach these details.
In the December 20, 2017 issue of The Journal, Duchman et al. use the ABOS Part-II exam database to analyze who among recent graduates of orthopaedic residencies is performing hip arthroscopies. Overall, between 2006 and 2015, the authors found that 643 of 6,987 ABOS candidates (9.2%) had performed ≥1 hip arthroscopy; nearly three-quarters of those reported sports-medicine fellowship training. More than two-thirds of candidates performing hip arthroscopy performed ≤5 such procedures; conversely, only 6.5% of those candidates performed 35% of all the hip arthroscopies identified in the database.
The concerning suggestion from these findings is that the increase in hip arthroscopy utilization comes from an increased number of individuals performing the surgery, rather than from an increase in procedure volume among individual surgeons. One question this study does not address is whether there has been an increase in the prevalence of hip pathology that warrants an increased utilization of this procedure. If not, an alternative explanation, which Wennberg et al. posit in the Dartmouth Atlas, is that procedure utilization expands in relationship to the distribution of provider resources and medical opinion in the local community.
I believe that hip arthroscopy is technically challenging and that the quality of the outcome is very likely related to the per-surgeon volume of procedures performed. This makes it incumbent upon all orthopaedists who offer this procedure to actively evaluate their outcomes with validated instruments so the practitioner and her/his patients can objectively understand and discuss what the results are likely to be.
In a commentary on this study, Rupesh Tarwala, MD calls for an outcomes analysis of patients who were treated with hip arthroscopy by ABOS Part-II candidates. I concur completely, and would more specifically ask that the cohort of surgeons evaluated in this study by Duchman et al. collect and report their 1- and 2-year outcomes to The Journal.
Marc Swiontkowski, MD
JBJS Editor-in-Chief
Let Unstable Chondral Lesions Be During Partial Meniscectomy
More than 900,000 patients every year undergo knee arthroscopy in the US. Many of those procedures involve a partial meniscectomy to address symptomatic meniscal tears. Surgeons “scoping” knees under these circumstances often encounter a chondral lesion—and most proceed to debride it.
However, in the July 5, 2017 issue of JBJS, Bisson et al. report on a randomized controlled trial that suggests there is no benefit to arthroscopic debridement of most unstable chondral lesions when they are encountered during partial meniscectomy. With about 100 patients ≥30 years old in each group, the authors found no significant differences in function and pain outcomes between the debridement and observation groups at the 1-year follow-up. In fact, relative to the debridement group, the observation group had more improvement in WOMAC and KOOS pain scores at 6 weeks, better SF-36 physical function scores at 3 months, and increased quadriceps circumference at 6 months.
The authors conclude that these findings “challenge the current standards” of typically debriding chondral lesions in the setting of arthroscopic partial meniscectomy. They also surmise that, in conjunction with declining Medicare reimbursements for meniscectomies with chondral debridement, these results “may lead to a reduction in the rate of arthroscopic debridement.”
Sports Medicine Update
Every month, JBJS publishes a Specialty Update—a review of the most pertinent and impactful studies published in the orthopaedic literature during the previous year in 13 subspecialties. Click here for a collection of all OrthoBuzz Specialty Update summaries.
The May 17, 2017 JBJS Specialty Update on Sports Medicine reflects evidence in the field of sports medicine published from September 2015 to August 2016. Although this review is not exhaustive of all research that might be pertinent to sports medicine, it highlights many key articles that contribute to the existing evidence base in the field.
Topics covered include:
- Prevention of Musculoskeletal Injuries
- Autograft vs Allograft ACL Reconstruction
- Anterior Shoulder Stabilization
- Hip Arthroscopy
JBJS Editor’s Choice—Knee Sepsis: Arthroscopic or Open Treatment?
In the March 15, 2017 issue of The Journal, Johns et al. report results from a Level III cohort study comparing arthroscopic vs open irrigation for control of acute native-knee sepsis. The authors collected information on more than 160 patients with knee sepsis over a 15-year period, which is a large cohort of patients with this relatively unusual clinical problem.
The data show a cumulative success rate of 97% with arthroscopic treatment after 3 irrigations and debridements vs 83% success in the arthrotomy group after the same number of procedures—a clinically important difference. Significantly fewer arthroscopic procedures were required for successful treatment, relative to open procedures, and post-procedure median knee range of motion was significantly greater in the arthroscopic group (90°) than in the open treatment group (70°).
The fact is that arthroscopic instruments allow a greater volume of irrigation fluid to be instilled with better access to the posterior recesses of the knee. With an open arthrotomy, it is more difficult to irrigate with high volumes, and the posterior recesses of the knee are not well accessed. It seems clear that arthroscopic management of acute knee sepsis should be the standard of care for these reasons, as well as because the technique is minimally invasive in terms of soft tissue stripping and incision size.
Treating infections of major-weight bearing joints is following a trend seen in surgical management of many orthopaedic conditions—smaller exposures with use of adjunctive visualization techniques.
Marc Swiontkowski, MD
JBJS Editor-in-Chief
JBJS Case Connections—Osteochondritis Dissecans: Baseball and Genetics
The exact mechanism by which osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) lesions develop is poorly understood. This month’s “Case Connections” spotlights 3 case reports of OCD in young baseball players, 2 of whom developed the condition in the shoulder. A fourth case report details 3 presentations of bilateral OCD of the femoral head that occurred in the same family over 3 generations.
The springboard case report, from the December 28, 2016, edition of JBJS Case Connector, describes a 16-year-old Major League Baseball (MLB) pitching prospect in whom an OCD lesion of the shoulder healed radiographically and clinically after 8 months of non-throwing and physical therapy focused on improving range of motion and throwing mechanics. Three additional JBJS Case Connector case reports summarized in the article focus on:
- Shoulder OCD in a teenage baseball player that was treated arthroscopically
- Early elbow OCD in young throwers
- Three cases of bilateral femoral head OCD that occurred in multiple members of the same family
Among the take-home points emphasized in this Case Connections article:
- MRI arthrograms are the best imaging modality to determine the stability of most OCD lesions. Radiographs in such cases often appear normal.
- Early-stage OCD has the potential to heal spontaneously. Activity modification and physical therapy are effective treatments.
- There is not a “gold-standard” surgical intervention for treating unstable/late-stage OCD. Surgery frequently provides clinical benefits but often does not result in radiographic improvement.
JBJS Classics: Arthroscopy’s Revolutionary Role in Diagnosing Knee Injuries
OrthoBuzz regularly brings you a current commentary on a “classic” article from The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. These articles have been selected by the Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editors of The Journal because of their long-standing significance to the orthopaedic community and the many citations they receive in the literature. Our OrthoBuzz commentators highlight the impact that these JBJS articles have had on the practice of orthopaedics. Please feel free to join the conversation by clicking on the “Leave a Comment” button in the box to the left.
Prior to the advent and subsequently ubiquitous use of MRI that most young surgeons are now accustomed to, it was difficult to determine the incidence of several common sports-related injuries. Frank Noyes’ 1980 classic JBJS manuscript, “Arthroscopy in Acute Traumatic Hemarthrosis of the Knee,” was one of the first articles to establish the clear relationship between hemarthrosis and significant intra-articular knee pathology. While the importance of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) had just come to light, Noyes’ landmark findings demonstrated the high incidence of ACL injury in association with acute traumatic hemarthrosis (ATH). Furthermore, he delineated arthroscopy’s critical role in accurately diagnosing other associated knee injuries.
This classic manuscript advocated for the use of arthroscopy as a diagnostic tool for the evaluation of ATH at a time when the consequences of a “knee sprain” with acute swelling were unclear. In patients who did not have obvious laxity, an existing acute rupture of the ACL was often left undiagnosed during initial clinical evaluations. Noyes’ innovation pushed the field to couple clinical examination with arthroscopy in cases of acute knee injuries, to allow for more accurate diagnosis. Following this paper’s publication, and well into the 1980s, research continued to confirm Noyes’ findings that one of the best uses of arthroscopy was for diagnosis of acute knee injuries.
This paper and another Noyes study[1] were among the first to identify the high rate of serious knee injuries among patients with ATH. Noyes’ JBJS paper showed that 72% of knees with ATH were characterized by some degree of ACL injury. Moreover, in knees with complete ACL disruption, both the anterior drawer and flexion-rotation drawer tests proved to be more accurate diagnostically when performed with the patient under anesthesia than when the tests were performed in the clinic. Further, he also established that ACL tear, meniscus tear, and/or cartilage injury must be included in the differential diagnosis of an ATH.
Noyes’ group revolutionized the course of treatment and care for patients with ATH. While we generally no longer use knee arthroscopy as a diagnostic tool, because of this article, we routinely order MRI in the setting of ATH. Noyes’ piece remains timeless and well-deserving of the title of a “JBJS Classic.”
Robert G. Marx, MD, MSc, FRCSC
JBJS Deputy Editor
Naaman Mehta, BS
Stephen Thompson, MD, MEd, FRCSC
JBJS Deputy Editor
Reference
[1] Noyes FR, Paulos L, Mooar LA, Signer B. Knee Sprains and Acute Knee Hemarthrosis: Misdiagnosis of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tears. Phys Ther. 60(12): 1596-1601, 1980.
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