Functional Results in Arthroscopic Treatment in Patients with Chronic Lateral Elbow Pain
Termphong Phorkhar MD*, Cholawish Chanlalit MD*
Affiliation : * Department of Orthopedics, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Nakhon Nayok, Thailand
Background : Modern surgery as elbow arthroscopic surgery is an accepted operation due to benefit in precise intra-
articular lesion detection and minimally invasive surgery.
Objective : To report the functional results when using arthroscopic surgery to treat chronic lateral elbow pain.
Material and Method: The data was collected from 25 patients with chronic lateral elbow pain that failed in non-operative
treatment and treated with elbow arthroscopic surgery. Five patients were excluded from this study due to diagnosed as
instability that needed the ligament reconstruction. The etiology of pain were grouped in to tennis elbow (4 pts), plica (9 pts),
tennis elbow combined with plica (4 pts) and cartilage lesion (3 pts). Thai quick DASH questionnaire was used to evaluate the
functional results by comparing pre and post operation score and calculated statistic results with paired t-test by level of
significance p<0.05.
Results : The mean follow-up after surgery was 22 months by mean disability module pre and post-operative score is 68 and
18 respectively. In the occupation module was 74 and 25 respectively and in sports module was 81 and 17 respectively. All
modules, scores was significant improved with p-value = 0.000, 0.000 and 0.004 respectively. The disability mean score in
pre and post-operative along the diagnosis, tennis elbow mean score was 74 and 33, in plica lesion mean score was 65 and
11, combined lesions mean score was 60 and 18 and cartilage lesion mean score was 60 and 20.
Conclusion : Approaching chronic lateral elbow pain with arthroscopy can maintain the significant improvement of func-
tional result in midterm follow-up.
Keywords : Lateral elbow pain, Elbow arthroscopy, Thai quick DASH, Results
