At the 2024 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) in San Francisco earlier this month, the Multicenter Orthopaedic Outcomes Network (MOON) Shoulder Group received the 2024 Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughn Award for advancing treatment methods for patients with atraumatic, symptomatic rotator cuff tears.
The MOON Shoulder Group was founded in 2004 by John (Jed) Kuhn, MD, MS, Kenneth D. Schermerhorn Professor of Orthopaedics and chief of shoulder surgery.
“Historically, research on shoulder surgery was not done well. Most of the publications were a collection of patients from one surgeon,” Kuhn said. “We knew that through multicenter collaboration we could enroll many patients and answer research questions better.”
The group decided to study rotator cuff tears because, at the time, very little was known about optimal treatment and how to prevent the failures of surgery. Before collecting patient data, the group spent two years aligning their practices with the best evidence on physical therapy protocols, ways to get X-rays and MRI scans and how to classify and define rotator cuff tears. They began enrolling patients in 2006 and recently had their 10-year follow up of that cohort accepted for publication by the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
“I am incredibly honored to have our work recognized,” Kuhn said of the Kappa Delta Award, which is the highest honor in orthopaedic research. “Hopefully the recognition of the impact that multicenter collaboration has made in treating rotator cuff disease will inspire other groups to conduct multicenter research to answer many of the other questions facing shoulder surgery and orthopaedics in general.”
Vanderbilt’s Department of Orthopaedics has won the Kappa Delta Award three times for different multicenter research efforts: Kurt Spinder, MD, director of Research & Outcomes at Cleveland Clinic Florida and adjunct professor, received it in 2012 for his study of the treatment of anterior cruciate ligament tears and Rick Wright, MD, Dan Spengler, MD Professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Chief Medical Officer, received it in 2019 for studying revision surgery of anterior cruciate ligament tears.
“All of these research studies were developed and are conducted with VUMC as the central hub,” Kuhn said. “There is no other orthopaedic department with this history, making VUMC Orthopaedics the premier center for multicenter clinical research in the United States.”
Under the direction of Carolyn Hettrich, MD, MPH, a former Vanderbilt Sports Medicine fellow, the MOON Shoulder Group has undertaken another multicenter research effort to study the surgery treatment of shoulder instability.
“We now have more than 1,700 patients enrolled in this study and will soon be able to answer many questions regarding the best surgical approach to this common problem regarding rotator cuff tears and their treatment,” Kuhn said. “Our data has demonstrated that physical therapy is very effective in treating atraumatic rotator cuff tears, but we do know surgery works well too, so essentially, we have two treatments that work. We do not know which is best and for whom.” To answer this question the MOON Shoulder group is engaged in a randomized study called the ARC trial that compares the outcomes of physical therapy to surgery repair of the rotator cuff.
“It is a tremendous recognition Dr. Kuhn and the MOON Shoulder Group received,” Wright said. “The Kappa Delta Award is the highest honor in orthopaedic research and recognizes what has been clinical practice-changing research that has improved rotator cuff disease patients’ outcomes.”
Including Kuhn, the orthopaedic shoulder specialists who contributed to MOON Shoulder research efforts from VUMC are Rosemary Sanders and Wright.