Papers of the Week

Time from symptom onset to surgery has been shown to impact functional outcomes after repair of traumatic rotator cuff tears (RCT), but this temporal relationship has not yet been evaluated in atraumatic, degenerative cuff tears. Furthermore, it has been shown that over time, atraumatic cuff tears tend to enlarge and become more symptomatic, retracted, and atrophic – factors that have been shown to decrease success rates after repair. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between time from symptom onset to surgery and postoperative outcomes in patients with atraumatic rotator cuff tears.