Tendon to Bone Healing
It is an option for surgeons to attempt to achieve tendon to bone healing of the cuff in all patients undergoing rotator cuff repair.

Rationale
While the primary clinical goal of rotator cuff repair surgery is improvement in pain, strength and function, a primary biological goal of the surgery is to achieve healing of the tendon to bone. Three Level IV 77, 83, 104studies addressed tendon to bone healing of the cuff in patients with full thickness rotator cuff tears. The first study77, 77, 83, 104 reported on MRI-confirmed status of the integrity of rotator cuff repairs in 63 subjects at two years from surgery. Patients with intact cuff repairs demonstrated improved outcomes over those found to have re-tears. The authors also reported a significant negative correlation with age but did not report magnitude of the correlation. Similarly, the second study104 reported superior outcomes, favoring intact cuffs over re-tears in a cohort of 49 subjects who underwent open repair with nonabsorbable suture at four year follow-up. In the last study, the rating of the tendon after repair was correlated with the UCLA score after surgery, but the authors did not report if the results were statistically significant for the outcome.