It's February, the year-end holidays are now behind us, and our journal is both clinically and academically directed as we energetically continue our 25th anniversary year. The articles in this issue represent a “mini-Fellowship” in the areas of shoulder, hip, knee, and platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
We start with a cadre of editorials. Let us make it clear that these are not “guest” editorials in the traditional sense, because John Richmond is an Associate Editor,1 Omer Ilahi is a valued member of our Editorial Board,2 and Thomas Byrd3 is an Associate Editor, emeritus. These editors speak for themselves, so we merely introduce that their messages are revelatory, and not to be missed.
With a focus on the future, we have announced: “Let's go to the video.”4 The response thus far has been heartening as journal contributors are fast responding. We applaud authors Suganuma et al.,5 Boileau et al.,6 Jamali et al.,7 Velez et al.,8 and van Eck et al.9 who have responded to the call for video. Readers interested in one or more of these articles will want to visit www.arthroscopyjournal.org to view these most recent, peer-reviewed, and educational videos.
Our feature articles begin with a veritable “double-feature” on shoulder instability in the form of both a systematic review (with video) from the Rush Sports Medicine group8 and an ISKAOS Upper Extremity Committee Report: Consensus Statement on Shoulder Instability.10
We continue our 25th Anniversary “Arthroscopy Classics” series where Associate Editor Wolf Petersen11 revisits Burkhart, Esch, and Jolson's elegant translational research12 on “The Rotator Crescent and Rotator Cable: An Anatomic Description of the Shoulder's ‘Suspension Bridge'” (Arthroscopy 1993;9:611-616). In this article, Burkhart et al. translated a complex biomechanical engineering model to a common-sense concept all readers could understand and, ultimately, to a clinically relevant basis for arthroscopic shoulder rotator cuff repair that is as germane today as in the year it was published. Petersen states that, “The use of such a terminology can help us to understand and memorize a complex biological mechanism … when I was a resident and I tried to understand Burkhart's ideas and theories, the comparison to the ‘suspension bridge' was very helpful.”
Another important feature is the flowchart guiding anatomic ACL reconstruction. Whether or not readers agree with the flowchart, because this work (with video) is authored by the ACL thought leaders from Freddie Fu's lab at the University of Pittsburgh,9 we certainly feel that the concepts deserve thoughtful consideration.
Finally, proudly featured is a timely Current Concepts review on the use of platelet-rich plasma in arthroscopy and sports medicine by Lopez-Vidriero et al.13 from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We are not surprised to find Associate Editor, emeritus, Don Johnson as the senior author of this review because Johnson was, is, and apparently always will be a step ahead of most of us when it comes to cutting-edge developments in arthroscopic and related surgery.
Controversy and consensus both seem well represented in this February 2010 issue of Arthroscopy, and we'll leave it to you readers to sort out which articles represent controversy and which represent consensus, as you interpret the issue. Regardless of which may represent which, we editors feel that this issue's over-riding theme is a focus on the future14 and, as such, we anticipate an exciting 25 years to come.
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