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Shoulder Arthroplasty for Humeral Head Avascular Necrosis Is Associated With Increased Postoperative Complications

  • Original Article
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HSS Journal ®

A Correction to this article was published on 03 April 2018

This article has been updated

Abstract

Background

Humeral head avascular necrosis (AVN) of differing etiologies may lead to shoulder arthroplasty due to subchondral bone collapse and deformity of the articular surface. There have been no large studies evaluating the complications for these patients after they undergo total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA).

Questions/Purposes

The first objective of this study is to evaluate the complication rate after TSA in patients with humeral head AVN. The secondary objective is to compare the complication rates among the different etiologies of the AVN.

Methods

Patients who underwent TSA were identified in the PearlDiver database using ICD-9 codes. Patients who underwent shoulder arthroplasty for humeral head AVN were identified using ICD-9 codes and were subclassified according to AVN etiology (posttraumatic, alcohol use, chronic steroid use, and idiopathic). Complications evaluated included postoperative infection within 6 months, dislocation within 1 year, revision shoulder arthroplasty up to 8 years postoperatively, shoulder stiffness within 1 year, and periprosthetic fracture within 1 year and systemic complications within 3 months. Postoperative complication rates were compared to controls.

Results

The study cohorts included 4129 TSA patients with AVN with 141,778 control TSA patients. Patients with posttraumatic AVN were significantly more likely to have a postoperative infection (OR 2.47, P < 0.001), dislocation (OR 1.45, P = 0.029), revision surgery (OR 1.53, P = 0.001), stiffness (OR 1.24, P = 0.042), and systemic complication (OR 1.49, P < 0.001). Steroid-associated AVN was associated with a significantly increased risk for a postoperative infection (OR 1.72, P = 0.004), revision surgery (OR 1.33, P = 0.040), fracture (OR 2.76, P = 0.002), and systemic complication (OR 1.59, P < 0.001). Idiopathic and alcohol-associated AVN were not significantly associated with any of the postoperative evaluated complications.

Conclusions

TSA in patients with humeral head AVN is associated with significantly increased rates of numerous postoperative complications compared to patients without a diagnosis of AVN, including infection, dislocation, revision arthroplasty, stiffness, periprosthetic fracture, and medical complications. Specifically, AVN due to steroid use or from a posttraumatic cause appears to be associated with the statistically highest rates of postoperative TSA complications. Given these findings, orthopedic surgeons should be increasingly aware of this association, which should influence the shared decision-making process of undergoing TSA in patients with humeral head AVN.

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Change history

  • 03 April 2018

    Due to a metadata tagging error, the name of author M. Tyrell Burrus was indexed incorrectly. M. Tyrell is the given name and Burrus is the family name.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Michigan Health System, 24 Frank Lloyd Wright Drive, Ann Arbor, MI, 48106-0391, USA

    M. Tyrrell Burrus MD

  2. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Virginia Health System, PO Box 800159 HSC, Charlottesville, VA, 22908, USA

    Jourdan M. Cancienne MD, Jeffrey D. Boatright MD, MS, Stephen F. Brockmeier MD & Brian C. Werner MD

  3. Oregon Health and Science University, 700 S.W. Campus Drive, 7th floor, Portland, OR, 97239, USA

    Scott Yang MD

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Correspondence to Brian C. Werner MD.

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Conflict of Interest

M. Tyrrell Burrus, MD, Jourdan M. Cancienne, MD, Jeffrey D. Boatright, MD, MS, Scott Yang, MD, Stephen F. Brockmeier, MD, and Brian C. Werner, MD, have declared that they have no conflict of interest.

Human/Animal Rights

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5).

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Informed consent was waived from all patients for being included in the study.

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Level of Evidence: Therapeutic Study Level III.

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Tyrrell Burrus, M., Cancienne, J.M., Boatright, J.D. et al. Shoulder Arthroplasty for Humeral Head Avascular Necrosis Is Associated With Increased Postoperative Complications. HSS Jrnl 14, 2–8 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11420-017-9562-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11420-017-9562-8

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