Purpose: The aim of this systematic review is to analyze outcomes of surgical procedures for glenoid and/or humeral bony defects, performed singularly or in combination, in patients with traumatic anterior glenohumeral instability. A secondary aim is to establish in clinical settings which percentage of glenoid or humeral bone loss needs to be treated with a bony procedure to avoid recurrence of dislocation.
Methods: A systematic review of the literature according to the PRISMA guidelines was performed. A comprehensive search of PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase and Google Scholar databases using various combinations of the keywords "shoulder", "instability", "dislocation", "bone loss", "bony bankart", "osseous glenoid defects", "glenoid bone grafting", "Latarjet", "glenoid", "humeral head", "surgery", "glenohumeral", "Hill Sachs", "Remplissage", over the years 1966-2012 was performed.
Results: Twenty-seven articles, describing patients with glenoid bony defect, humeral bony defect or both in the setting of traumatic anterior glenohumeral instability, were included. A total of 1,816 shoulders in 1,801 patients were included, with a median age at surgery of 27.1 years, ranging from 12 to 75 years. Patients were assessed at a median follow-up period of 2.8 years (ranging from 6 months to 28.2 years). The overall recurrence of redislocation occurred in 117 (6.5 %) shoulders. The redislocation event occurred in 40 of 553 (7.2 %) shoulders with glenoid bony defect, in 30 of 225 (13.3 %) shoulders with humeral bony defect and in 63 of 1,009 (6.3 %) shoulders with both glenoid and humeral involvement.
Conclusion: Even though the general principle of recognizing and treating glenoid and humeral bone defects in patients with traumatic anterior glenohumeral instability is widely accepted, few studies are available to date to accurately establish which bone defects should be treated with bone procedures and the exact percentage of bone loss leading to higher risk of redislocation in clinical settings.