Rotator Cuff Injuries in the Pediatric Population: A Retrospective Review of Patient Characteristics and Treatment at a Single Center.

BACKGROUND: As youth participation in contact and overhead sports has increased in recent decades, so has the occurrence of injuries of the shoulder. Rotator cuff injury (RCI) is an infrequent shoulder pathology in pediatric patients and its description in the literature has been scarce. A greater understanding of RCI characteristics and treatment outcomes in children and adolescents would improve our understanding of this pathology and help to better guide clinical decision-making. HYPOTHESIS: To identify pediatric patients with magnetic resonance imaging-confirmed RCI treated at a single center to summarize injury characteristics, treatment, and outcomes. It was hypothesized that injuries would occur predominantly in overhead throwing athletes and would demonstrate good outcomes among both operatively and nonoperatively treated patients. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level 4. METHODS: A retrospective review of pediatric patients (<18 years old) diagnosed with and treated for an RCI between January 1, 2011 and January 31, 2021. Patient demographics, injury mechanism and type, treatment, and outcomes were collected. Descriptive statistics were performed. Bivariate testing was used to compare operatively and nonoperatively treated cohorts. RESULTS: A total of 52 pediatric patients treated for a rotator cuff avulsion, partial tear, or complete tear were identified. Mean age was 15 years and 67% of patients were male. Injuries were related most commonly to participation in throwing sports. Operative management occurred in 23% of patients, while 77% were managed nonoperatively. Treatment cohorts differed based on tear type, with all complete tears being managed operatively (P < 0.01). Associated shoulder pathology was common, with the most frequent finding being anterior shoulder instability pathology. Return to play was longer for operatively managed patients (7.1 vs 4.5 months; P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The present study expands the limited data available regarding RCIs in pediatric patients. Most injuries are associated with sports and involve the supraspinatus tendon. RCIs were associated with good outcomes and low rates of reinjury in patients managed both nonoperative and operatively. RCI should be considered in throwing athletes with shoulder pain, even in skeletally immature patients. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This retrospective study fills the hole in the literature by detailing the patterns associated with RCI characteristics and treatment outcomes. In contrast to studies of adult RCIs, our results suggest that outcomes are good regardless of treatment type.

Stationary bike injuries prompting emergency department presentation in pediatric patients: an epidemiological study.

OBJECTIVES: Potential harms of stationary bike injuries in pediatric patients have been highlighted in the literature, but prior work is limited to case series and without population-level analysis. The purpose of this study is to examine the epidemiology of pediatric stationary bike injuries occurring in the US over the last decade using a national database. METHODS: Injuries resulting from stationary bike use in pediatric patients from 2012 to 2021 were identified using coding from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database. Patient demographics, injury characteristics, and case narratives were examined. National annual estimates of injury frequency/incidence were calculated using weighting and survey package in R. Univariate analyses were used to compare injuries among groups. RESULTS: We identified 525 stationary bike injuries representing an estimated total of 15,509 injuries in the population. Pediatric patients sustained an average of 1,551 injuries annually, with an estimated yearly increase of 288 injuries (p < 0.01) after 2019. While males sustained more injuries, there were age-dependent differences in frequency of injuries between sexes (p < 0.01). The upper extremity was the most commonly injured body region overall, but children 5 and under sustained more injuries to the head/neck. The most common overall injury type was lacerations, while fractures predominated in the 6 to 11-year-old age group. Fifty-six percent of injuries were sustained not while riding the bike, most notably among children under 12. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that the impact of stationary bike injury in the pediatric population is not insignificant, and most injuries are related to improper play rather than traditional exercise use. Gender and age-related patterns differed in regard to the type and mechanism of injury sustained. Children 5 and under sustain a disproportionate amount of injuries to the head, neck, and upper extremity. As stationary bikes grow in popularity, preventative measures should be considered to reduce injuries to young children.

Repair of infectious thoracoabdominal aneurysm and coeliacomesenteric trunk with removal of endovascular graft.

Infectious aneurysm of the thoracic or abdominal aorta is a rare clinical condition. We present the case of a 72-year-old female with an infectious thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm with a coeliacomesenteric trunk requiring open repair following endovascular therapy. Following removal of the endovascular graft, the thoracoabdominal aorta was repaired using cardiopulmonary bypass and deep hypothermia. The common trunk of the superior mesenteric artery and the coeliac artery was then reconstructed, which included endarterectomy of the super mesenteric artery to create a cuff for an anastomosis. This case demonstrates the challenges associated with the endovascular repair of a condition with an infectious aetiology and highlights the necessity of open repair in complex cases with aberrant vascular anatomy.

Rotator cuff injury in the pediatric population: a systematic review of patient characteristics, treatment, and outcomes.

Rotator cuff injuries (RCIs), traditionally thought to be an adult-type pathology, have been reported in the pediatric population, but there remains limited evidence regarding this injury pattern in pediatric patients. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the literature to characterize the epidemiology, injury patterns, treatment modalities, and outcomes for pediatric patients with RCIs. A systematic review was performed in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, reviewing Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane, and CINAHL databases. Studies reporting imaging confirmed RCIs, and treatment outcomes in patients less than 18 years of age were included. Patient demographics, mechanism, injury type, and injury location were recorded. Treatment type and patient outcomes were abstracted when available and summarized with descriptive statistics. Our search identified 28 studies published from 1994 to 2020, which included 215 total tendons injured in 185 patients. Twenty-six studies were classified as level IV evidence, whereas only two were level III. When described, the most injured tendon ( n = 184) was the supraspinatus, whereas the most described injury type ( n = 215) was a partial tear. Surgical intervention was pursued in 75.8% of injuries, with arthroscopy being more common than open repair (79.4% vs. 20.6%). Nonoperative treatment was primarily utilized for partial tears. Among the 24 studies reporting on return to sports, nonoperatively managed patients returned later than those treated operatively (mean: 10.7 vs. 7 months). Only eight studies included patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), and just five had pre- and posttreatment scores. Three complications were noted, all in operative patients. RCIs in pediatric patients have been reported in the literature with increasing frequency over the last decade, but the quality of evidence remains poor with inconsistent injury descriptions and outcome reporting. Excellent results were seen for all injury types and locations with both operative and nonoperative treatments. The literature for pediatric RCIs remains limited in guiding management decisions indicating a need for more high-quality studies to compare outcomes across injury and treatment type. Level of evidence: level III.

Comparison of pediatric performance athlete injuries presenting to emergency departments.

OBJECTIVE: Pediatric injuries in performance sports represent a significant healthcare burden and account for over 50,000 annual Emergency Department (ED) visits in the United States. The objective of this study was to characterize and compare pediatric injury presentation across the most common performance sports. METHODS: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database was retrospectively analyzed for pediatric injuries (3-18 years) related to gymnastics, dance, or cheerleading from 2015-2019. Cases were categorized as children (˂11 years) or adolescent (≥11 years). Injuries were categorized as orthopedic (fractures, dislocations, sprain, strains), non-orthopedic (contusion, internal injury, laceration), concussion, or other/unknown. Case narratives were used to categorize mechanism of injury as contact or non-contact. Appropriate sample NEISS weights estimation was applied for statistical analysis and Confidence Intervals (CI). RESULTS: A total of 393,110 injuries were observed over the five-year study period, with a mean of 78,622 annual injuries. Gymnastics, dance, and cheerleading accounted for 136,422 injuries, 96,416 injuries, and 160,272 injuries, respectively. Most cases were adolescent (71%; 95% CI: 68-74%) and occurred in a sports-related setting (65%, 95% CI: 57-72%). Gymnastics had the highest proportion of injuries among children (50%) as compared to dancers (25%) or cheerleaders (12%) (p < 0.01). Non-contact injuries most affected the lower extremity (43-68%) and resulted in an orthopedic diagnosis (63-71%), and contact injuries had a higher proportion of injuries affecting the head, neck, and face (29-51%) and non-orthopedic diagnoses (29-38%). Gymnastics had the most upper extremity non-contact injuries (42%) and dance the most lower extremity non-contact injuries (68%) (p < 0.01). Cheerleading had the highest incidence of overall concussions (8%), contact injuries (47%), and concussions due to contact injury (15%). CONCLUSION: Pediatric gymnasts, cheerleaders, and dancers have important similarities and differences in injury pattern which may lead to the development of sport-specific injury prevention programs for pediatric performance athletes.

A Corresponding Point Measurement System Provides Reliable Measurement of Displacement for Medial Epicondyle Fractures.

Little consensus exists on the best method for evaluation and management of pediatric medial epicondyle fractures because of an inability to reliably evaluate fracture displacement with standard imaging techniques. This study aimed to determine the performance of various radiographic views in evaluating displaced medial epicondyle fractures when using a standardized measurement methodology. Methods: Ten fellowship-trained pediatric orthopaedic surgeons assessed fracture displacement in 6 patients with displaced medial epicondyle fractures using radiographic views (anteroposterior, lateral, axial, internal oblique [IO], and external oblique [EO]) and computed tomographic (CT) views (axial, 3-dimensional [3D] horizontal, and 3D vertical). Raters used a corresponding point method for measuring displacement. For each image, raters measured the absolute displacement, categorized the percent of displacement relative to the size of the fragment and fracture bed, and indicated a treatment option. Interobserver reliability was calculated for each view. Bland-Altman plots were constructed to evaluate the bias between each radiograph and the mean of the CT methods. Results: For absolute displacement, anteroposterior and EO views showed almost perfect interobserver reliability, with an interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.944 for the anteroposterior view and an ICC of 0.975 for the EO view. The axial view showed substantial reliability (ICC = 0.775). For the displacement category, almost perfect reliability was shown for the anteroposterior view (ICC = 0.821), the axial view (ICC = 0.911), the EO view (ICC = 0.869), and the IO view (ICC = 0.871). Displacement measurements from the anteroposterior, axial, and EO views corresponded to the measurements from the CT views with a mean bias of <1 mm for each view. However, the upper and lower limits of agreement were >5 mm for all views, indicating a substantial discrepancy between radiographic and CT assessments. Treatment recommendations based on CT changed relative to the recommendation made using the anteroposterior view 29% of the time, the EO view 41% of the time, and the axial view 47% of the time. Conclusions: Using a corresponding point measurement system, surgeons can reliably measure and categorize fracture displacement using anteroposterior, EO, and axial radiographic views. CT-based measurements are also reliable. However, although the mean difference between the radiograph-based measurements and the CT-based measurements was only about 1 mm, the discrepancy between radiographic views and CT-based methods could be as large as 5 to 6 mm. Level of Evidence: Diagnostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

C-arm contamination of the surgical field: Can contamination be reduced with an intervening drape?

INTRODUCTION: Contamination of the surgical field by the C-arm in orthopaedic procedures is a significant potential source for surgical site infections. The purpose of this study was to explore the utility of a split sheet to aid in prevention of secondary contamination from the C-arm on the C-arm side of the operative field. METHODS: A C-arm and a surgical table were draped by standard techniques. The surgical table was split in thirds: the surgeon's side, the C-arm side of the operative field, and the middle for contamination analysis. Fluorescent powder was used to simulate a contaminant and placed on the C-arm, floor and lower portions of drapes. The C-arm was cycled between PA and Lateral positions. Powder transfer to the field was visualized with a camera under uniform UV light. Photographs were taken to measure fluorescent pixels prior to cycling the C-arm and at 5, 10 and 15 cycles. This protocol was repeated using a split sheet (U-drape) to isolate the C-arm below the operative field. Image J was utilized to calculate differences in the number of pixels brighter than the control image. RESULTS: Using standard draping techniques, there was contamination of the surgical field with the C-arm side of the operative field having the highest level of fluorescent pixels. The number of fluorescent pixels was linearly correlated with the number of PA to Lateral cycles. At the end of 15 cycles, the average number of fluorescent pixels for the intervening draping technique was 2.9 pixels compared to the standard draping technique of 3939 pixels (p = 0.0078). DISCUSSION: The addition of a U-drape between the C-arm and the table results in a statistically significant reduction in surgical field contamination as a result of secondary transfer from the C-arm. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II.

Effects of Therapeutic Ultrasound on Growth Plates: A Systematic Review.

PURPOSE: The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate studies reporting on the effects of therapeutic ultrasound on the physis. SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS: Eight studies were included in the final analysis, all of which were animal studies. At higher doses, studies found skin and bone necrosis and inhibition of growth, while in lower doses some studies found that ultrasound had a transient stimulatory effect on growth, increased thickness of the hypertrophic zone, and increased thickness of the whole growth plate. Overall, experimental evidence in animal models suggests that therapeutic ultrasound, even at low doses, might induce microscopic changes to the histology of the growth plate. CONCLUSION: While we found no reports of growth disturbance in humans, given the histological changes found in animal studies, the current limited literature seems to support the recommendation that the application of therapeutic ultrasound around the physis should be avoided.

Open Reduction of Medial Epicondyle Fractures in the Pediatric Population: Supine Versus Prone Position.

BACKGROUND: Operative treatment of medial epicondyle fractures can be performed in either a supine or prone position. In the supine position, fracture visualization is sometimes difficult due to the posterior position of the medial epicondyle. However, the prone position requires extensive patient repositioning but may improve visualization. The purpose of this study was to compare the results and complications between the supine and prone position when treating medial epicondyle fractures. METHODS: In a retrospective chart review, patients below 18 who underwent open reduction and internal fixation of an acute medial epicondyle fracture from January 2011 to August 2019 were identified. Patients with <2 months follow-up and concomitant fractures were excluded. Surgical variables, outcomes, and complications were recorded and compared between the supine and prone positions. RESULTS: Sixteen surgeons treated the 204 patients evaluated in this study. The mean age was 11.7 years. In all, 122 (60%) patients were treated in the supine position, and 82 (40%) in the prone position. The mean time in the room was 113 minutes in the supine group, and 141 minutes in the prone group (P<0.001). Tourniquet time was similar between groups (P=0.4). Displacement of the fracture on the first postoperative x-rays was 2.06 mm for the supine position and 1.1 mm for the prone position (P<0.001). We also found good interobserver and intraobserver reliability for the measurements. Five patients (2.5%) required reoperation due to stiffness, 2 patients due to nonunion, 1 patient due to tardy ulnar nerve palsy, and 53 (26%) had surgical hardware removal. The surgical position was not associated with complications or reoperation. CONCLUSIONS: While the prone position requires additional time in the operating room, presumably for positioning, the length of the surgical procedure itself does not differ between the 2 positions. Although the trend of the surgeons at our center is towards the prone position, with surgeons that try it usually doing all their subsequent cases that way, both positions provide excellent clinical outcomes with minimal complications. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic level III-retrospective cohort study.

Seasonal variability and age-related risk in youth trampoline injuries.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this work was to estimate the difference in severity between musculoskeletal trampoline park injuries (TPIs) and home trampoline injuries (HTI) and identify the factors that might mediate or modify that effect. METHODS: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database was used to identify musculoskeletal home trampoline injuries and TPIs in pediatric patients occurring in the 2009-2017 period. Injury mechanism and body region were inductively coded. The effect of TPI on risk of admission was estimated using a doubly robust logistic regression model for confounding adjustment. Adjustments were made for date, age, gender, injury mechanism, and body region. The comparative importance of injury mechanism and location and the effect modification of patient characteristics was explored using likelihood ratio tests. RESULTS: Trampoline park injuries were more likely to result in admission even in the model adjusted for injury mechanism and body region (odds ratio (OR) = 2.12 [1.30, 3.45]). Injuries sustained from falling off the trampoline were associated with significantly fewer hospitalizations (OR = 0.119 [0.029, 0.495]) than injuries from falling while on the trampoline. Patient age significantly modified the effect of setting on risk of admission (P = 0.042). Adolescents demonstrated an increased risk at trampoline parks (15 years old OR = 3.23 [1.38, 7.56]), whereas younger children demonstrated a marginally lower risk (5 years old OR = 0.77 [0.44, 1.35]). CONCLUSIONS: Trampoline park musculoskeletal injuries demonstrate an increased risk of admission even after rigorous adjustment for confounding. Injuries to the proximal limbs were associated with a much higher risk of admission than distal injuries. Adolescents face an increased risk of admission after TPI, underscoring the importance of public health interventions that target this age group.