By: 13 April 2018
Live surgery and lively discussions

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

Arthrex successfully hosted the 7th Annual Live Surgery event at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, on 3 February, 2018

The event was convened by local lead surgeon Mr Socrates Kalogrianitis and focused on management and treatment of a wide range of shoulder pathologies. Dr Larry Higgins (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA) commenced the meeting with an excellent talk on instability with and without bone loss. This was followed by the first live surgery of the day – a Pan Labral Instability procedure by Miss Julie McBirnie (Edinburgh). The large repair on a 20-year-old male was expertly completed with innovative Short BioComposite 2.9mm PushLock anchors with LabralTape suture.

The second international guest, Dr Matthias Flury (Schulthess Clinic, Zurich), shared his expertise with a talk on proximal biceps tenodesis. This brought us nicely into the second live procedure of the day, where Mr Rohit Gupta (Surrey) completed an arthroscopic proximal biceps tenodesis on a 28-year-old patient who had previous surgery for SLAP tear, utilising the Forked Biceps SwiveLock anchor designed by Dr Flury.

World-renowned surgeon, Professor Len Funk (Wrightington), began the first of two rotator cuff repair surgeries featured in the day with a demonstration of the newly launched portable Synergy MSK Ultrasound device. This was done immediately prior to surgery to demonstrate how a diagnostic scan and assessment of the size of the tear can be performed pre-operatively. The patient was a 37-year-old active male who had previous symptoms of pain from weightlifting and working in a manual job. He was referred for surgery after previous physiotherapy and steroid injections had proved unsuccessful.

The day continued with an insightful talk by Dr Larry Higgins on collecting patient outcome data using the Surgical Outcomes System, highlighting changes in the way data should be analysed. Mr Matt Ravenscroft (Stockport) finished the morning session with a skillfully performed Superior Capsular Reconstruction (SCR) with InternalBrace. The patient for this case was a 55-year-old female with a previous traumatic irreparable cuff tear. The SCR construct consists of ArthroFLEX dermal graft joined to the superior glenoid by 3mm BioComposite SutureTak anchors and a 4.75mm SwiveLock SpeedBridge configuration on the humeral aspect. Mr Ravenscroft chooses to support graft healing by using InternalBrace technology with an additional ‘seatbelt’ fixation over the graft.

For the afternoon session, the physiotherapists broke out for specialist talks hosted by local physiotherapist Caroline Miller and guest lecturers Ian Horsley, Allan MacDonald, Emma Salt and Deborah Williams. Topics included Tips and Tricks: Returning to Sport Post Shoulder Surgery.

In the main lecture hall, Mr Duncan Tennent (London) performed the second rotator cuff repair of the day with a subscapularis SpeedFix construct on a female patient suffering from a traumatic cuff injury, with the surgery performed in the lateral decubitus position. The day drew to a fantastic close with an insightful talk on sternoclavicular joint arthroscopy and SCJ InternalBrace from moderator Mr Graham Tytherleigh-Strong (Cambridge) before Mr Socrates Kalogrianitis performed a knotless SCR. The surgery featured his tips on suture management and also launched the new Trimano Fortis arm positioning device.

The event proved to be a great success and was extremely well received by the delegates. Our thanks to all the faculty that contributed to a thoroughly informative and enjoyable day – we look forward to next year’s ArthrexLive event in Birmingham.