Preface

While shoulder instability is a common diagnosis, optimal management remains challenging despite improvements in evaluation and surgical techniques. The surgeon-clinician must be well-equipped with knowledge and understanding of the equilibrium between motion and stability to maximize the surgical outcome and to prevent risks of recurrence.

This special edition on anterior shoulder instability contains articles from worldwide authorities to provide a comprehensive overview of the pathoanatomy and clinical decision making for the management of this common condition. Debski et al. explain the biomechanics of stabilizers of the glenohumeral joint. MacDonald et al. provide a summary of natural history and epidemiology after first-time anterior shoulder dislocation. In the last decade much attention has been devoted to addressing bone loss with shoulder instability. Lo et al. explain how to best assess for bony attrition.

Additionally, one of the goals of this issue is to present the various innovative methods and techniques of treating shoulder instability by the world’s foremost experts. In addition to well described classics such as the open Bankart, open Latarjet, and arthroscopic stabilization procedures described by Arciero et al., Walch et al., and Lin et al., respectively, more recent techniques are included in this edition including the arthroscopic Latarjet by Boileau et al. Furthermore, Provencher et al. provided an overview of their technique using distal tibial osteochondral allograft. Tokish et al. explained their method of augmenting the glenoid using the distal clavicle autograft. Moreover, salvage procedures such as iliac crest autograft technique are outlined by Warner et al.

Finally, rehabilitation and return to sports after surgical stabilization is outlined by Irrgang and his colleagues. It is our pleasure and honor to have the opportunity to assemble this collection of articles from esteemed faculty. We hope that this issue will stimulate interest and discussion among the readers, and most importantly result in improvement of patient care.

Acknowledgments

Dr. Shin and Dr. Lin would like to thank all the authors included in this special anterior shoulder instability edition for their contribution to this journal and to the field of orthopaedic surgery.

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Annals of Joint for the series “Trends in Anterior Shoulder Instability”. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflict of Interest: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/aoj.2017.12.07). The series “Trends in Anterior Shoulder Instability” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. JJS served as the unpaid Guest Editor of the series. AL served as the unpaid Guest Editor of the series and serves as an unpaid editorial board member of Annals of Joint from Jun 2016 to May 2018. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Albert Lin

Jason J. Shin