Published online Feb 18, 2024. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v15.i2.156
Peer-review started: October 4, 2023
First decision: December 12, 2023
Revised: December 20, 2023
Accepted: January 8, 2024
Article in press: January 8, 2024
Published online: February 18, 2024
Processing time: 125 Days and 18.3 Hours
Anatomical shoulder arthroplasties used for glenohumeral osteoarthritis are often evaluated by mean improvement in patient reported outcome measurements. However, these mean improvements do not talk much about how the individual patient is performing. Therefore, we have aimed to focus on each individual patient’s improvement. These improvements are linked to the minimal clinical important difference, allowing us to determine the proportion of patients achieving a clinically relevant improvement.
To determine the proportion of patients with glenohumeral osteoarthritis and treated with an anatomical shoulder arthroplasty that achieve a clinically relevant improvement. This a new way of analyzing the results which is much more relevant to the individual patient.
To determine the proportion of patients having a clinically relevant improvement two years postoperatively after treatment with an anatomical total shoulder arthroplasty. In future research, we believe that this will be a frequently used analysis method.
We used data from three different patient reported outcome measurements. The improvements from preoperatively to two years postoperatively were connected to the associated minimal clinically important difference (MCID). The proportion of patients exceeding the MCID was defined as the rate of clinically relevant improvement.
The rate of clinically relevant improvement was 87%, 94%, and 88% for the three different patient reported outcome measurements.
Using a new method for analysis of improvements in patient reported outcome measurements, we found that approximately 90% of patients with glenohumeral osteoarthritis and treated with an anatomical shoulder arthroplasty achieved a clinically relevant improvement.
In future research, this method will probably be a frequently used analysis method. The results of this study should be confirmed in larger cohorts.