Evaluation of Screws Positioning in Latarjet Surgery: Is There a Correlation between Parallelism to Glenoid and Radiographic Complications?^*

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate whether the parallelism of screws with glenoid in Latarjet surgery interferes in the positioning of the graft and to verify the reproducibility of a method of measuring screws positioning.

Methods

Retrospective, multicenter study, of patients with anterior shoulder instability submitted to modified Latarjet surgery and at least one year of postoperative follow-up. Two radiologists analyzed the postoperative tomographic images, acquired in a database, to evaluate the positioning of screws and radiographic complications.

Results

We evaluated 34 patients, aged between 21 and 60 years, one of them with bilateral shoulder involvement, totaling 35 shoulders evaluated. The tomographic evaluation of the inclination angles of the screws showed no difference between the observers. There was intra- and interobserver agreement to evaluate the following surgical parameters: graft position, presence or not of radiographic complications.

Conclusion

The technique described for measuring the parallelism of screws in Latarjet surgery presented a very good and excellent intra-observer agreement, respectively. Screw parallelism with glenoid is recommended; however, it is not a mandatory and unique condition to avoid radiographic complications.

Keywords
bone screws; shoulder dislocation/surgery; shoulder joint/surgery; computed tomography x-ray