26. OVERTIME: Distal Biceps Ruptures

On today’s episode, we’re going to chat about the treatment of distal biceps tendon ruptures. We’ve seen this injury across many sports and in some prominent players – for example, Miguel Cabrera, all-star first baseman, sustained a biceps tendon rupture while at bat, when he swung and missed an off-speed pitch. We also see this injury in cross fit athletes, body builders and overhead laborers. This can be a devastating injury for our athletes, so understanding the treatment technique options, post-op rehab and what return to sports and return to work looks like is very important.

We’ll start off with how to decide between non-op treatment and surgical repair and what those treatment protocols look like. Then, we’ll shift our focus to surgical treatment and compare one and two incision distal biceps tendon repair techniques. After surgical repair, there is then a decision of rehab protocols. 

We’re going to reference many articles from AJSM throughout our talk today. We’ll post the abstracts to our Instagram, which is @thesportsdocspod – if you don’t already follow us you should! So, if you’re interested in reading more about the individual studies you can find them there.