According to a research from the UNC’s School of Medicine, anabolic steroid treatment can have the potential to improve surgical repair of massive or recurrent tears of the shoulder’s rotator cuff tendons.

This study, which appeared in an issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine, was led by Dr. Spero Karas, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery in UNC’s School of Medicine.

From News-Medical.Net:

Anabolic steroids benefit millions of people a year, said Karas, including those with deficiencies in sex hormones and burn victims who need to build up their metabolism to repair musculoskeletal tissue. They also are FDA-approved for treating anemia for their ability to help the body rebuild blood.

As it’s widely known that anabolic steroids can build muscle mass and strength, Karas said he thought these properties might apply to shoulder tissue and that Banes’ bioartificial tendon might provide the appropriate model for testing.

“In this new study, supraspinatus tendon cells were harvested from my patients during rotator cuff surgery, isolated and then sent to Albert’s lab,” Karas said. “The cells were then grown in his culture media to coalesce and form this experimental tendon model, the bioartificial tendon.”

Karas said that the finding suggested that significant improvements in biomechanical properties of bioartificial tendon matrices were noticed when they were treated with anabolic steroids and then mechanical load or strain