Comparison of ice and subacromial injection for postoperative pain and edema in patients who underwent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair

Rotator cuff tears are common health problems increasing with age. After arthroscopic repair, postoperative pain can be challenging for patient and surgeon and it can affect postoperative results. To prevent that some pain control modalities were developed but their affectivenes are uncertain. İn our study, ice packs and single shot subacromial injections were compared between. İn our study, fifty-nine patients were divided into ice (n = 23), injection (n = 20) and control (n = 16) groups. Demographic data, preoperative analgesia usage history, surgical operations, amount of fluid used during surgery, preoperative, postoperative 0-1-7-14-21.VAS scores, tendon retraction and fatty degeneration, amount of total analgesia consumption during postoperative period were noted. For postoperative edema, the line between anterior posterior axiller line and the line between ac joint and lateral epicondyle was measured preoperative, postoperative 0-1-7-14-21. days. İn postoperative 21. Day, SF-36 score was measured. Repetitive measurements were examined between and within groups. After statistical analysis, no significant difference was found between ice, injection and control groups in total analgesic consumption, SF-36 scores, anterior posterior axillary line and ac joint- lateral epicondlyle line (p>0,05). In all groups, vas scores decreased significantly (p<0,05) but changes between groups were not significant (p>0,05). No statistically significant difference was found in any group when postoperative analgesia consumption was compared between patients with and without a history of analgesia use in the preoperative period. When analgesia consumption of female and male sex were compared, analgesic consumption was significantly higher in female sex in all three groups (p<0,05). There was no significant difference in the amount of tendon retraction and fatty degeneration between groups (p>0,05). In our study, ice pack application and single shot injection has no affect for postoperative pain control in arthroscopic rotator cuff repairs. It should be kept in mind that postoperative pain is affected by many factors related to the patient and surgery, and researchers should be careful about the difficulties in "standardization" of patient population and pain measurement during the investigation of analgesic methods.