Postoperative Death Associated With a Reverse Prosthesis

The mortality rate after total shoulder arthroplasty, and specifically after reverse total shoulder arthroplasty, has not received much attention in the literature. Although complications of the reverse total shoulder arthroplasty are well known, fatalities secondary to complications related to the unique features of the reverse prosthesis have not, to our knowledge, been previously reported.

We report the case of an elderly man who developed shoulder instability after the implantation of a reverse prosthesis followed by disassociation of the glenosphere from the baseplate. After a reoperation to revise and reassemble the components, he developed an infected shoulder and sepsis, and subsequently died from the complications of sepsis.

This death represents a perioperative mortality rate of 0.5% in our series of 190 cases. The mortality rate after reverse total shoulder seems to be similar to that after standard total shoulder arthroplasty.