LAUSR

To the Editor: Lateral epicondylalgia, whose incidence rate is approximately 1.3%, not only occurs in tennis players (tennis players only account for 5%), but is also related to smoking, poor social support, and heavy physical labor. Surgical treatment should be considered when conservative treatment fails after 6 months, which occurs in 10% of lateral epicondylalgia cases. Arthroscopic intra-capsular elbow surgery (the intra-capsular method) refers to an operation that selects the natural cavity of joint capsule as operating space. The intracapsular method soon became the mainstream surgical method because of its minimally invasive nature, safety, and direct-vision feature compared with open surgery. However, the intra-capsular method requires damage to the joint capsule, and intra-capsular operation may cause intraoperative neurovascular injury and other complications. Rubenthaler et al explored a new approach to arthroscopic treatment for lateral epicondylalgia, which was performed outside of the elbow joint capsule. Further study investigated the efficacy and specific surgical scheme of this extra-capsular arthroscopy (referred to as the “extra-capsular method”), which was soon launched in our clinical practice.