Bioabsorabable anchor placement, suture passage, and completed arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.

Watch 30-second, narrated videos of SLAP lesion and rotator cuff repairs, courtesy of Eric Olson, MD. Dial-up users may need to allow some extra time for these files to download.

Quciktime SLAP Repair, Windows Media SLAP repair
Quicktime Cuff Repair, Windows Media Cuff Repair

Patients are asleep during the surgery, and a nerve block may be used to numb the shoulder and arm to help reduce pain after surgery. Saline (salt solution) is pumped into the shoulder to expand the joint and help the surgeon see and control any bleeding.

When repairing a joint, your shoulder specialist will make one to three additional small incisions to insert other instruments. These may include a blunt hook to pull on the tissue, a shaver to remove damaged or unwanted tissue and a burr to remove bone.

Miniature anchors, which allow surgeons to repair torn soft tissues back to the structures from which they've been torn, can be placed into the bone. After shoulder dislocations, the ligaments and labrum may be repaired in the same manner. Shoulder arthroscopy allows just the injured structures to be addressed. the large muscles around the shoulder are not damaged by large incisions, allowing faster, less painful recovery.

While working on the shoulder joint, a surgeon may place the camera in the space above the rotator cuff tendons where he or she can evaluate the area above the rotator cuff, clean out inflamed or damaged tissue, remove a bone spur and fix a rotator cuff tear.

Sophisticated instruments allow tendons to be sewn back to the bone without having to create a large hole in the deltoid muscle, the largest in the shoulder. This allows for a less painful recovery from rotator cuff repair and smaller scars.

At the completion of your surgery, the fluid is drained from the shoulder, the small incisions are closed, and a dressing is applied.