This large database study compares 1-year complications of arthroscopic SLAP repair against arthroscopic and open biceps tenodesis for SLAP tears. Using propensity-matched cohorts from over 90 million patients, it asks which procedure carries fewer revisions and complications.
When you counsel a patient on SLAP surgery, this paper gives you the tradeoff in numbers. SLAP repair reattaches the labrum but carries a 1.4 to 1.8 times higher revision rate than biceps tenodesis, plus more subsequent rotator cuff strain diagnoses.
Biceps tenodesis avoids those revisions but buys more early pain and, in the open version, more stiffness. Match the procedure to the patient: SLAP repair skews younger, tenodesis skews older, consistent with data that repair fails more often in older patients.
Read this as a Level III database study. Administrative coding cannot capture lesion type, tissue quality, or surgeon rationale, so it shows associations, not causation. The practical takeaway aligns with the broader literature trend already favoring tenodesis: for the older or lower-demand patient with an isolated SLAP lesion, tenodesis offers a lower revision burden.
This large database study compares 1-year complications of arthroscopic SLAP repair against arthroscopic and open biceps tenodesis for SLAP tears. Using propensity-matched cohorts from over 90 million patients, it asks which procedure carries fewer revisions and complications.
When you counsel a patient on SLAP surgery, this paper gives you the tradeoff in numbers. SLAP repair reattaches the labrum but carries a 1.4 to 1.8 times higher revision rate than biceps tenodesis, plus more subsequent rotator cuff strain diagnoses.
Biceps tenodesis avoids those revisions but buys more early pain and, in the open version, more stiffness. Match the procedure to the patient: SLAP repair skews younger, tenodesis skews older, consistent with data that repair fails more often in older patients.
Read this as a Level III database study. Administrative coding cannot capture lesion type, tissue quality, or surgeon rationale, so it shows associations, not causation. The practical takeaway aligns with the broader literature trend already favoring tenodesis: for the older or lower-demand patient with an isolated SLAP lesion, tenodesis offers a lower revision burden.