Today’s article “A Comparison of Outcomes After Endoscopic Repair of Partial- Versus Full-Thickness Tears of the Gluteus Medius Tendon” is from Thaunat et al.
The gluteus medius is one of the muscles of the hip. It serves as a hip abductor and helps with activities such as walking. Tears of this tendon can often manifest as pain on the outside of the hip. Pain at the lateral hip has been called greater trochanteric pain syndrome and initial treatments can include corticosteroid injections and therapy. However, a tear of the gluteus medius can be repaired often times in a similar fashion to that of a rotator cuff tear in the shoulder. Previous studies have shown good results with repair in patients that fail conservative treatment.
The authors were able to retrospectively review the outcomes of 46 patients. Tears were graded based on the extent of the tear: grade 1- <25%, grade 2- 25-50%, grade 3 > 50%, grade 4- full thickness tearing. Half of the patients had grade 1 or 2 tears. There were also 10 grade 3 tears and 13 grade 4 tears. Pain scores, rated from 0-10 with 10 being the worst, improved from a median of 8 before surgery to 2 at final follow up with no differences noted between tear grades. The authors showed significant improvements in modified Harris Hip Scores and Nonarthritic Hip Scores, two patient reported outcome measures, at final follow up. Like the pain scores, there was no significant difference between the tear grades and nonarthritic hip scores.
This paper differs from some published before as the authors focused on only gluteus medius repairs and did not address any other hip pathology. Ultimately, the authors show good results from endoscopic gluteus medius repairs with a low complication rate.
