Rotator cuff repair with carbon filament. A preliminary report of five cases.

Carbon filament-polylactic acid (CPA) is useful in closing large and massive tears of the rotator cuff. CPA was not used to fill a large gap between the cuff edge and raw bone. In the small number of shoulders (five) repaired with CPA, the best results were obtained in first-time operations. In two patients who had total acromionectomies, the functional results were poor, as expected. CPA-assisted cuff repairs have not yet been shown to be significantly better than repairs with conventional techniques.