How often do rotator cuff repairs fail?

Not Often: Usually rotator cuff surgeries are successful resulting in shoulder pain relief 3-6 months post-op. Unsuccessful outcomes are more likely if your tear is severe, the rotator cuff was damaged or weak prior to the tear, you are older than 65 years old, you are a smoker and/or you do not follow your physical therapy regimen. Weakness and chronic pain may result if your tear does not fully heal.

Depends: That depends on many factors the age of the patient or the activity level of the patient come to mind first. As a general rule rotator cuff reconstructions have a very small re-occurence rate.

Depends: Depends on patient age, health, size of the tear, surgical repair , smoking, and appropriate rehabilitation. It's like planting a tree... Healthy tree, good soil, sunlight, rain and planted correctly it will take root. But if any one of those elements is missing there may be a problem. Your doctor can help stratify you chances of repair.

More than we think: Unfortunately, we are getting more and more evidence that rotator cuff repairs fail a lot more commonly than we previously thought. Many patients feel perfectly fine after a repair, but will have a tear if examined with MRI or ultrasound. For small to medium tears, the retear rate can be close to 30%. For large tears, the retear rate is more than 50%! for now, we still believe in cuff repairs.

Depends: Rotator cuff repairs are very successful in improving pain and fucntion associated with rotator cuff tears. Depending on if the repair is evaluated by mri, ultrasound, arthroscopy or clinically, will give you different rates of healing. What is known is that even tears that don't completely heal do much better than tears that are don't repaired. Small tears heal better than large tears.

Many Factors?: There are many factors to consider in defining the cause of a failed rotator cuff repair. Failure rates have been reported from 11-94%. Learn more here: http://www.Theshouldercenter.Com/failed-rotator-cuff-repair.Htm.

Hard to Say: New evidence is mounting that failure can be as high as 30-40%. Still Rotator Cuff repair is standard of care if conservative management fails. Other options include platelet or even stem cell therapy. Check out Regenexx.Com

Not very often: There are many variables that determine outcomes and success after surgery. The main factors are how old the tear is, the retraction of the tear, the quality of the tissue, co-morbitities (diabetes and smoking), the skill of the surgeon and the post operative compliance of the patient. While surgery can fail, all of these issues come into play. Discuss these with your MD to have the best success.