tendon-injury

Tendon injuries

Tendon injuries are relatively common in active dogs, horses, and people. Some of these injuries can be dramatic and require surgical repairs, such as Achilles tendon rupture, biceps tendon injury, medial shoulder ligament and tendon injury (medial shoulder instability or MSI), and patella tendon rupture. Our team is expert at these surgeries and has published on the management (including surgery) of medial shoulder instability, Achilles tendon repair using allograft reconstruction, and patella tendon repair using allograft tendons. Fortunately, those injuries are the minority.

Many tendon injuries, such as less severe forms of MSI, biceps tendonpathy, iliopsoas tendinopathy, and supraspinatus (shoulder) tendinopathy do not need surgery but need extensive non-surgical management with an emphasis on accurate diagnosis, staging (ie assessing the severity of the injury), and non-surgical management. Many of these areas are within KCCO’s area of expertise including diagnostic nano-arthroscopy, which has rapidly become the single most effective diagnostic for visualizing biceps tendon injury and medial shoulder instability. Musculoskeletal ultrasound and MRI are also particularly useful for the assessment of biceps, supraspinatus, and iliopsoas tendinopathies. Many such tendon injuries require physical rehabilitation and some are also treated with orthobiologics (platelet-rich plasma, autologous protein solution, and stem cells).

If your dog has a tendon injury, please don’t hesitate to reach out to KCCO as we would be happy to help with diagnosis, staging, and either non-surgical or surgical treatment depending upon which appears the best option for your dog.