Arthroscopic Treatment Of Chronic Refractory Lateral Epicondylitis
Jong Pil Yoon, Ji-Soo Kim, Hyung-Sup Kim, Hyun-Joo Lee, Poong-Taek Kim
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Kyung Pook National University, School of Medicine, Daegu,
Korea
Objectives
Lateral epicondylitis is one of most common disease, but the various pathologies
and treatment results are not established. The aim of this study was to
investigate the concomitant pathologies and treatment results of arthroscopic
treatment of lateral epicondylitis.
Material and Methods
Twenty eight patients (mean age: 52.3, SD 8.7) with who underwent arthroscopic
procedure for refractory lateral epicondylitis with a minimum six-month history of
lateral epicondylitis that was unresponsive to conventional therapy are included.
All patients had history of conservative treatment at least 3 months. We
evaluated overall clinical result and compared according to concomitant
pathologies. The patients were questioned about pain during rest and during
dorsiflexion of the wrist against resistance in visual analog scale. The clinical
results were evaluated using upper extremity functional scales and Mayo elbow
scores.
Results
Significant clinical improvement from baseline was observed in visual analogue
scale (from 7.3 to 2.2), upper extremity functional scales (from 35.4 to 22.2) and
Mayo elbow scores (from 61.4 to 88.5) in overall patients (in particular, p<0.05).
There was no significant difference of postoperative clinical outcome between
preoperative presence of plica and severity of intraarticular synovitis (p=0.249,
347). There no other severe complications required surgical revisions.
Conclusions
Arthroscopic procedure for lateral epicondylitis is a reliable treatment that allows
patients an expedited return to work and may result in greater pain and functional
improvement, despite of various concomitant pathologies.