Comparison of the Functional Outcomes of Arthroscopic Debridement and Repair of Bursal-side Partial-thickness Rotator Cuff Tears

Background: To compare the clinical and functional scores of arthroscopic debridement and repair (conversion to full thickness) surgeries in patients with bursal-side partial-thickness rotator cuff tears (BPTRCT). Materials and Methods: A single-center retrospective study was conducted to compare the arthroscopic debride-ment and arthroscopic repair for BPTRCT performed between March 2017 and September 2021. Arthroscopic debridement patients were grouped as Group 1 and the repair group as Group 2. A total of 98 patients with an average age of 57.5 years (range 29-83 years), including 41 male and 57 female patients, met the inclusion criteria. VAS (Visual Analogue Scale) and UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) shoulder scores applied in the preopera-tive period and in the 12th month of the postoperative clinical follow-ups were evaluated. In addition to the pre-operative and postoperative comparison of both scores, their improvement of these scores was also compared. Results: The mean age of the repair group and the debridement group was 64.4 ±11.02 and 52.6 ±11.24, respective-ly. No significant difference between the two groups was observed in terms of demographic characteristics (p˃0.05). The mean operation time was 91.46 ±16.44 min in the repair group and 49.82 ±13.46 min in the debridement group. The VAS score dramatically improved, from preoperative 5.10±1.23 to postoperative 3.68±1.33 points in the deb-ridement group and from preoperative 5.17±1.35 to postoperative 3.58±1.16 points in the repair group. The two groups had no statistically significant difference in postoperative VAS scores (p=0.991). Preoperative and postopera-tive VAS score improvement was also compared between the groups, however, there was also no statistically signifi-cant difference in terms of VAS score changes (p=0.132). The UCLA scores also dramatically improved, from pre-operative 17.14±4.19 to postoperative 24.57±5.04 points in the debridement group and from preoperative 17.46±5.05 to postoperative 25.48±5.61 points in the repair group. No statistically significant difference was ob-served between the two groups in terms of postoperative UCLA scores (p=0.361). In the postoperative first-year follow-up, no re-tears were observed either in the debridement or in the repair group. Conclusions: Both arthroscopic debridement and arthroscopic repair surgeries provide clinically comparable suc-cessful results and high satisfaction for patients with bursal-side rotator cuff tears. No statistically significant differ-ence was observed between these two methods. Easier early postoperative rehabilitation seems to be the main advantage of the debridement method.