HOW ACCURATELY DO COMMONLY USED CLINICAL OUTCOME SCORING SYSTEMS REFLECT THE CLINICAL OUTCOME OF PATIENTS WITH PROXIMAL HUMERAL FRACTURES?

Abstract

Proximal Humeral fractures are common injuries that are difficult to treat satisfactorily despite the variety of operative and conservative treatment options that are available. To make any real sense of the literature concerning the treatment of these injuries, it is important that the tools that clinicians use to assess clinical outcomes accurately reflect each patient’s level of symptoms and function.

Aim: To assess how well commonly used subjective, and composite clinical scoring systems reflect patients’ perceptions of pain and functional recovery.

Methods: We invited all patients who had sustained a proximal humeral fracture that had been treated using a PHILOS (Synthes) Locking plate to attend for review. All patients were reviewed at a minimum of 14 months following surgery by which time they had all been discharged from regular clinical review months before. All patients completed subjective Visual Numerical Scales (VNSs) for pain, and for function, that were used to compare more commonly used shoulder/upper limb scores (UCLA, Modified Constant, Oxford, and Quick DASH scores).

Results: 33 patients were available for review. 55% were women. Age range 25–83 years (Ave. 57 years). Timing of review after index procedure (Range 14–58 months, ave. 30 months). Patients appeared to find the numerical VNSs easier to understand, and interestingly, analysis of the pain component of the each of the commonly used scores were answered inconsistently when the scores were compared. With respect to patient perception of pain and subjective level of function, both the Oxford and Quick DASH scores consistently overscored both parameters placing the majority of patients in higher (clinically better) categories, while the Constant score underscored the majority of patients placing them in lower categories (satisfactory or poor). The UCLA score was marginally better than the Constant score in relation to the VNSs for pain and function.

Discussion: Despite our dependence upon the more commonly used Clinical Outcome Scoring systems to help guide us with choosing the best treatment options for our patients with proximal humeral fractures, our study confirms our suspicions that none of these outcome scores truly reflect our patients perception of function and pain. In addition, the terminology and sentence structure that is used in all of the commonly used scoring systems may bias the results by confusing many of our patients.

Conclusion: Currently, none of our commonly used shoulder outcome scores truly reflect the clinical outcome of patients who have sustained proximal humeral fractures. Instead, it may be better to use subjective VNSs that are easy for patients to understand and are quick to use.