Increased 30-Day Postoperative Readmission and Medical Complication Rates Among Patients 65 Years and Older Following Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to use a large national database to assess short-term adverse events following arthroscopic rotator cuff repair in patients 65 years and older. Methods: The ACS NSQIP database was queried to identify patients that underwent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair between December 31, 2015, and January 1, 2017. Patients were split into two groups: 1) between 40-65 years old and 2) 65+ years old. Cases involving open rotator cuff repair, total shoulder arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, and emergency surgery were excluded. Exact matching was used to control for confounding variables, including sex, body mass index (BMI), American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, operative time, and several medical comorbidities. After matching, the incidence of several 30-day patient complication measures was compared between the groups. Binary logistic regression was used to identify covariates associated with various 30-day complications. Results: A total of 17,880 patients were included in the study. 69.4% ( Conclusions: In this matched cohort study, patients 65 years and older experienced a higher rate of 30-day unplanned readmission and overall medical complications following elective arthroscopic rotator cuff repair relative to patients under 65. However, these older patients did not have significantly worse rates of other 30-day complication measures, including mortality, reoperation, return to the OR, and non-home discharge.