Anabolic steroids can facilitate surgical repair of shoulder tears
Improvements can be attained in context of surgical repair of massive or recurrent tears of the shoulder’s rotator cuff tendons when anabolic steroids are used, as per a new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This study appeared in an issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine and was led by Dr. Spero Karas, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery in UNC’s School of Medicine.
From News-Medical.Net:
“We clearly found that when you looked at the bioartificial tendon matrices that were treated with anabolic steroid and then mechanical load or strain, we saw significant increases in their biomechanical properties,” Karas said.
“The tendons were smaller, more dense, stronger, more elastic and had better remodeling properties than tissue cells not treated with steroid or placed under strain,” he said. “They responded better to the load and formed a more normal appearing tendon, versus a more disorganized matrix we see in the untreated bioartificial tendon.”
Thus, said Karas, it appeared that load and anabolic steroid “act synergistically” to improve the characteristics of tendon.
Karas said the research had clinical applications, including the possibility of a day when bioartificial tendon matrices might literally help bridge the gap between deficient human tissue and the normal state – that is, to bridge the holes that remain following surgery for large rotator cuff tears.
In the less distant future, the new study’s crucial implications may apply to the post-surgery healing of tendons that have been torn or retracted for a long time, he said.
This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
