Surgical Complications After Reverse Total Shoulder Arthroplasty and Total Shoulder Arthroplasty in the United States

Shoulder arthroplasty has become popular in the treatment of degenerative shoulder conditions in the United States. Shoulder arthroplasty usage has expanded to younger patients with increased surgical indications. Reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (RTSA) and TSA patient records with the 1-year follow-up between 2015 and 2018 were queried from the nationwide PearlDiver Mariner Shoulder Database using International Classification of Disease-10 codes. Chi-square analysis was done to compare the demographics, surgical complications, and revision procedures between RTSA and TSA. From 2010 to 2018, there was an increase in shoulder arthroplasty cases because of RTSA. The overall surgical complication and revision procedure rates were 2.26% and 3.56% for RTSA, and 6.36% and 2.42% for TSA. Patients older than 50 years had statistically lower surgical complications after RTSA than TSA (2.25% versus 3.94%, P < 0.05), whereas no statistical difference between RTSA and TSA for patients younger than 50 years (10.06% versus 7.45%, P = 0.19). Male patients had higher RTSA complication rates (3.12% versus 2.28%, P < 0.05), whereas female patients had higher TSA (4.86% versus 5.92%, P < 0.05). History of tobacco, depression, and obesity were risk factors for higher complications. RTSA has become more commonly done than TSA in the United States. Older patients who underwent shoulder arthroplasty had lower surgical complication. TSA had a higher surgical complication rate than RTSA for patients older than 50 years