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Torn labrum not necessarily career-ending injury
July 16th, 2009 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
Just five years ago, baseball writer, radio host and injury expert Will Carroll called torn shoulder labrums “baseball’s most fearsome injury,” adding “If pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they’d be destroyed.” However, thanks to improvements in surgery, baseball players no longer have to look at torn labrums as career-ending injuries.
Almost all torn shoulder labrums require surgery. In the early 2000s, however, surgery often made the injury worse, causing a painful and debilitating condition known as chondrolysis in which the cartilage in the shoulder joint wears away. Chondrolysis causes a decreased range of motion, weakness in the shoulder, and extreme pain. Some patients require shoulder replacement surgery. The resulting condition baffled doctors until they began to make a connection between chondrolysis and the pain pumps used to deliver medication to the wound site following surgery.
The problem was traced to a change in the way the manufacturers of pain pumps advised surgeons to use them. The pumps were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the catheters implanted into the shoulder tissue. Those catheters delivered medication to the area for up to 72 hours. However, pain pump manufacturers began advising doctors to implant the catheters directly into the shoulder joint. As medication dripped into the joint space, it gradually began to eat away at the cartilage, causing a specific type of condition now known as Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis, or PAGCL.
Once the connection was made, doctors began stopping the practice if implanting the pain pump catheters in shoulder joints and outcomes have improved. While a torn labrum can still end a career, the outcome is much brighter than just a few years ago.
Sources: AZ Snakepit
