Benefits of Arthroscopy for Tendon Injuries

Whether it’s from chronic overuse or a fall or other accident, you’ve sustained a tendon injury that requires surgery. Perhaps it was from a laceration that went through the tendon, or it’s a chronic overuse injury that’s causing limited range of motion and painful movement. Your physician has deemed an operation is necessary to bring the joint associated with your tendon injury back to full function.

At Coastal Empire Orthopedics, our board-certified orthopedic surgeons perform arthroscopic surgery routinely to diagnose and repair soft tissue injuries. This type of surgery has several advantages over open surgery and is considered one of the greatest innovations in orthopedic surgery in the 20th century.

What is arthroscopic surgery?

Our doctors perform arthroscopic surgery to find out exactly what’s going on inside the joint structure that’s causing you pain. Your surgeon makes a tiny incision and inserts an instrument called an arthroscope into the opening where the joint is located. The arthroscope shines a bright light on the joint using fiber optic technology and magnifies the area many times.

The arthroscope is connected to a camera, which projects a picture of the joint onto a large screen. Your surgeon locates the problem and makes the repairs. If it’s a more complex problem and open surgery is needed, your doctor can proceed so that you don’t need another operation.

Benefits of arthroscopic surgery

Arthroscopic surgery has many benefits over open surgery.

Less invasive than open surgery

Arthroscopic surgery is less invasive than traditional open surgery. The incisions are tiny when compared to those of open surgery. For example, in open shoulder rotator cuff surgery, the doctor may need a two to three-inch incision versus one not quite one-quarter of an inch when arthroscopy is used.

Because the opening is much smaller, fewer stitches are needed for arthroscopic surgery. Among other good news, you’ll have less scarring.

Less damage to surrounding tissue

Open surgery cuts into a significant amount of healthy tissue to allow for a view of the problem site. Arthroscopic cuts cause less damage to healthy tissue. Your surgeon can see the area clearly with the powerful camera lens that magnifies the site. There’s also less risk of infection because less tissue is affected.

Quicker recovery

Because there’s less handling of tissue and a small incision, you’ll heal faster with arthroscopic surgery than you would with open surgery. You’ll also feel less pain from the smaller incision. Arthroscopic surgery has been life-changing for elite sports players and regular players who can get back in the game months more quickly than with open surgery. What were once career-ending injuries are now treated successfully with arthroscopic surgery so that you can take the field again or get back to your everyday life.