On today’s episode we’re focusing on meniscus tears with Dr. Elizabeth Matzkin, Orthopedic Surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Chief of Women’s Sports Medicine. We have some great articles for you today that really contribute well this conversation on how to best manage various types of meniscus tears across different age groups.

Dr. Matzkin specializes in sports medicine, knee and shoulder surgery. She is an attending surgeon and Chief of Women’s Sports Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital . Dr. Matzkin earned her MD from Tulane Medical School. She completed her orthopedic residency at the University of Hawaii and then went on to complete a fellowship in sports medicine at Duke.

Dr. Matzkin currently serves as a team physician for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, U.S. Paralympics Soccer Team, U.S. Women’s National Hockey Team, and is the head team physician of Stonehill College. She is passionate about the care of female athletes and has dedicated much of her research to focusing on sex differences in musculoskeletal medicine.

The first paper is from the April issue of AJSM, titled Long-term National Trends of Arthroscopic Meniscal Repair and Debridement. It is a descriptive epidemiology study specifically looking at ABOS case collections. For our listeners that may not know what that means, orthopedic surgeons in their first year of practice are required to prospectively record their cases over a 6 month period and submit those to the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery for evaluation. So, this data is thought to be a good surrogate for the current state of orthopedic education, and can highlight the newest shifts in treatment. Wasserburger et al found that, over the past 10 years, the rate of meniscus debridement has steadily decreased while the rate of meniscus repair has increased. Younger patient age and treatment by a sports medicine surgeon were associated with a higher likelihood of repair.

We then focus specifically on meniscus root tears and review the publication Outcomes of Arthroscopic All-Inside Repair Versus Observation in Older Patients with Meniscus Root Tears from the April 2020 issue of AJSM. Dragoo and colleagues at Stanford described their technique for all-inside meniscus root repair using a side-to-side reduction suture between the posterior horn and remaining posterior root tissue, followed by a mattress suture to tether the meniscus to the posterior capsule, thereby reinforcing the repair. The authors showed improved functional outcomes and decreased rate of total knee replacement compared to non-op treatment of root tears in patients with moderate arthritis.

On today’s episode we’re continuing our discussion on shoulder instability with Dr. Mark Price, Orthopaedic Surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Head Team Physician for the New England Patriots. We have 5 great articles which we discuss over two episodes that really contribute well this conversation on how to best manage shoulder instability in athletes both in-season and post-season. 

We’re very honored to have Dr. Mark Price join our discussion today. Dr. Price specializes in sports medicine, knee and shoulder surgery. He is an attending surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Price earned his MD from Harvard Medical School and PhD in Medical Physics from MIT. He completed the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program, where Catherine and I both attended as well, and then went on to complete a fellowship in sports medicine and shoulder reconstructive surgery at Mass General. Dr. Price is Head Team Physician and Medical Director for the New England Patriots and a Team Physician for the Boston Red Sox. He is a Captain in the US Navy Reserves and has served in combat operations in Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service. 

We begin with Dr. Hettrich of Brigham and Women’s Hospital who recently investigated the question “Are there racial differences between patients undergoing surgery for shoulder instability?” We’ll dive further into this topic and chat about how this impacts resident and fellow education. 

We will follow these articles up with a discussion on the surgical management of shoulder instability by reviewing two articles from the March issue of Arthroscopy. The first is a prospective randomized controlled trial titled Arthroscopic Bankart Repair With and Without Curettage of the Glenoid Edge. Desai and his team concluded that curettage of the glenoid edge reduced the incidence of postoperative recurrence of instability likely relating to improved healing of the capsulolabrum repair. Avramidis and colleagues contributed their cases on the management of recurrent anterior shoulder instability by All-Arthroscopic Modified Eden-Hybinette Procedure Using Iliac Crest Autograft and Double-Pair Button Fixation System. 

On today’s episode we’re focusing on shoulder instability with Dr. Mark Price, Orthopaedic Surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Head Team Physician for the New England Patriots. We have 5 great articles which we discuss over two episodes that really contribute well this conversation on how to best manage shoulder instability in athletes both in-season and post-season. 

We’re very honored to have Dr. Mark Price join our discussion today. Dr. Price specializes in sports medicine, knee and shoulder surgery. He is an attending surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Price earned his MD from Harvard Medical School and PhD in Medical Physics from MIT. He completed the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program, where Catherine and I both attended as well, and then went on to complete a fellowship in sports medicine and shoulder reconstructive surgery at Mass General. Dr. Price is Head Team Physician and Medical Director for the New England Patriots and a Team Physician for the Boston Red Sox. He is a Captain in the US Navy Reserves and has served in combat operations in Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service. 

The first paper is from the February issue of AJSM, titled Incidence of Posterior Shoulder Instability in the United States Military. It is a descriptive epidemiology study by Brett Owen and his team which found the incidence is higher than previously reported. Then, from the January issue of Sports Health, we feature the publication Does Functional Bracing of the Unstable Shoulder Improve Return to Play in Scholastic Athletes? Tokish and colleagues found functional bracing did not result in increased success rates when compared to no bracing in adolescent athletes.

Episode 2 resumes our discussion with Dr. Mulcahey on all things ACL. On this episode, we chat about management of ACL injuries including graft choice, surgical technique and how we approach and rehab ACL revision surgeries. Dr. Mulcahey is an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon at Tulane University where she serves as the director of the Women’s Sports Medicine Program and is a team physician for numerous high school, collegiate and professional sports teams.

Episode 1 starts off with a quick discussion on COVID-19 and its impact on sports before moving into our main topic of ACL injuries. We’ll chat about some of the COVID protocols that were put in place to ensure the safety of all our athletes during their seasons, as well as optimizing a safe return to sports after recovering from COVID-19 infection. After wrapping up our COVID discussion, we’ll then move on to the fun stuff: ACL injuries! We have three great articles for you that really contribute well the conversation on how to best prevent and manage ACL injuries. We’re excited to have Dr. Mary Mulcahey join us for this discussion. Dr. Mulcahey is an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon at Tulane University where she serves as the director of the Women’s Sports Medicine Program and is a team physician for numerous high school, collegiate and professional sports teams.