Surgical treatment of chronic acromioclavicular dislocation : comparison between two surgical procedures for anatomic reconstruction

INTRODUCTION: Surgical treatment of chronic complete acromioclavicular (AC) joint dislocation is still debated and no gold standard surgical procedure has been identified. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective series of 90 patients treated for AC dislocations is reported here. Patients were divided into three groups: group 1 receiving AC reconstruction with a Dacron vascular prosthesis; group 2 receiving AC reconstruction with LARS(®) artificial ligament; group 3 receiving conservative treatment. Follow-up was performed after 1, 6 and 15 months with plain radiographs, UCLA, SPADI and modified UCLA acromioclavicular rating scales. RESULTS: Patients treated surgically presented significant better functional outcome compared to patients treated conservatively with overall positive results in 93.3% of patients for group 2 and 53.3% of patients for group 1. However, reconstruction with Dacron vascular prosthesis presented an unacceptable high complications rate (43.3%). CONCLUSION: Our results show that anatomic AC reconstruction with LARS(®) artificial ligament resulted in both satisfactory functional outcome and low complication rate. Therefore, we recommend this procedure for the treatment of chronic complete AC dislocations.