Clinical Outcomes of Long Head Biceps Tendinitis Treatment by a Semitenodesis Technique

Introduction Long head biceps (LHB) tendon pathology results in anterior shoulder pain, affecting activities requiring overhead movement and forward flexion. Current surgical options for those in whom conservative management failed include tenotomy and tenodesis, and both have considerable success rates and various complications. Herein, we present a novel technique using tenotomy with autotenodesis of the LHB. Methods Patients with isolated LHB tendinopathy and for whom the six-month conservative treatment failed were included in our study. Our semitenodesis technique was performed from May 2015 to May 2021. All patients underwent postoperative rehabilitation and were followed in the clinic to document the visual analog scale (VAS) score, constant functional score, supination and flexion power, and postoperative satisfaction score. We used IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows version 20.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY) to analyze our data. Results The study included 26 patients with a mean age of 50 +/- 4.3 years and a male predominance. Following our technique, the postoperative VAS score improved significantly from 8.8 to 3 within three months and decreased to 0.4 during the final follow-up. The shoulder average constant score improved significantly from 45 +/- 4 to 79 +/- 5, in addition to a high postoperative mean satisfaction score. Only one patient had a Popeye sign deformity, making an incidence percentage of 3.8% with our technique. Conclusions We conducted this study to assess the outcomes of our novel technique using tenotomy with autotenodesis of the LHB compared to traditional techniques such as tenotomy and tenodesis. Our novel technique showed an improvement in pain score superior to patients who underwent tenodesis and tenotomy three months postoperatively. Furthermore, our technique yielded lower postoperative complications than traditional techniques. Our patients also scored a high mean of postoperative satisfaction. Therefore, our technique is a promising treatment option, proving its superiority over tenotomy and tenodesis in treating isolated LHB tendonitis.