2026/06/10 by Florian Schönweger, Francesco Marbach, Pietro Feltri +3
Medicine · #Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation #Shoulder Injury and Treatment #Shoulder and Clavicle Injuries
paper · doi:10.1002/arj.70327
openalex publication_date 2026/06/10 · openalex created_date 2026/06/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Letter to the Editor1 on our recent article, “Regarding ‘Sling Is Not Inferior to Brace Immobilization After Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair: A Randomized Controlled Trial’”.2 We read the letter with interest and appreciate the opportunity to address the points raised. First, Narvani et al. expressed concerns regarding the different duration of the immobilization period in the 2 groups (6 weeks for the brace group—3 weeks full time and then 3 weeks at night—and 2 weeks for the sling group). In designing the study, we carefully evaluated the period of immobilization of the 2 groups: for the brace group, we chose 6 weeks because it's our standard protocol, based on the current literature regarding delayed passive motion rehabilitation protocols in arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.3-5 On the contrary, the sling was chosen for a period of only 2 weeks to ensure a rehabilitation protocol with early mobilization, which is in line with the study purpose. In fact, the decision to have a different immobilization period between the 2 orthosis is consistent with the fact that they are based on 2 different concepts of postoperative rehabilitation. Therefore, as in the current clinical practice, the sling is used for only 2 weeks and purely for postoperative pain relief purposes, to achieve early range of motion.6, 7 Regarding the follow-up period of the study (6 months), we agree with the colleagues that this can be a limitation, as stated in the discussion of the paper. In fact, whereas 6 months are enough to evaluate immediate and short-term recovery, pain, stiffness, and return to work, they may not be sufficient to evidence the recurrence of secondary tendon rupture. For this reason, a long-term follow-up (minimum 2 years) of this randomized controlled study will be performed, after approval of the local ethical committee. Although this does not change the value of our short-term data to study patient recovery, further long-term data will complete the assessment on a longer clinical trajectory. The author (C.C.) declares the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: C.C. has received institutional support outside the present work from Medacta International SA, Johnson & Johnson, Lima Corporate, Zimmer Biomet, and Oped AG. The other authors (F.S., F.M., P.F., S.R.M., G.F.) declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.