Morbidity of surgical techniques for radioscapholunate fusion in radiocarpal osteoarthritis

Abstract

Radioscapholunate (RSL) arthrodesis is a treatment option for radiocarpal osteoarthritis in conditions such as post traumatic osteoarthritis after intra-articular distal radius fracture, stage 2 SLAC wrist, Kienbock's disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. Fusion can be achieved by various techniques such as fixation by K-wires, staples, plates and screws, with or without bone grafting, with no standard fixation technique currently established. We performed a retrospective analysis of patients treated with radioscapholunate fusion in our institution to analyze the morbidity of the different surgical techniques.

We performed a retrospective data analysis of patients treated with RSL fusion for radiocarpal osteoarthritis in our institution between 2013 and 2023.

20 patients underwent RSL fusion; 3 with rheumatoid arthritis and 17 with post-traumatic radiocarpal osteoarthritis. Fixation was performed with screws in 11 cases (55%), with plates and screws in 6 cases (30%) and with plates in 3 cases (15%). In 17 cases (85%), bone graft was inserted in the fusion zone, mostly from distal radius (25%) or iliac crest (20%). The mean range of motion (ROM) of the affected wrist decreased from 81° preoperatively to 53° postoperatively, grip strength decreased from 25 kg preoperatively to 21 kg postoperatively. 8 cases (40%) showed a total of 11 complications during follow up, all of them were revised surgically. The most common complications were conflict of hardware with soft tissue or joint surface (36%, 4 cases), followed by non-union and pancarpal arthritis (each 18%, 2 cases), one seroma of the iliac crest, one lunohamatal conflict and one tendon irritation. 2.4 mm plates were used for fusion in 3 of the 4 cases suffering from conflict with the hardware. Both cases of non-union occurred in heavy smokers with over 30 pack years.

We observed a slightly higher fusion rate of 90% compared to the literature, with only two cases of non-union heavy smokers. There was no significant difference in complication rate or severity between the surgical techniques, however the majority of the complications were observed in patients treated with dorsal plates as fusion material. This can be explained by the hardware prominence, which causes conflict and irritation of the surrounding tissue.

Hardware-related complications, non-union and pancarpal osteoarthritis remain the main problems in RSL fusion. The hardware prominence can increase the risk of conflict with the surrounding soft tissue. We therefore recommend the use of screws or anatomically adapted low-profile plates for fusion.