Patients

Between 2014 and 2018, a total of 252 collision athletes (ie, athletes involved in football, rugby, judo, and sumo) with unstable shoulders underwent coracoid transfer via Bankart repair for shoulder stabilization by a single surgeon (T.Kawasaki). After performing many Bristow procedures and evaluating the results, ¹⁸ we changed the technique to investigate the therapeutic effects of the Latarjet procedure from late 2016 onward. Thus, shoulder stabilization was achieved via the Bristow procedure in the first 143 shoulders of 132 collision athletes, while the Latarjet procedure was performed in the subsequent 127 shoulders of 120 collision athletes. Of this cohort, we included 169 shoulders in 154 rugby players who met the following study inclusion criteria: (1) had at least 1 episode of a shoulder dislocation or subluxation, (2) were competitive male rugby players who wanted to return to play, (3) had a minimum 24-month follow-up period, and (4) had clinical data available from medical records. Recreational rugby players, collision athletes who played a sport other than rugby, and rugby players who had undergone any previous shoulder surgery were excluded from the present study.

All patients provided informed consent for study participation. This study was approved by the institutional review board of our hospital.