FACT SHEET: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Releases 2025 Shoulder & Elbow Registry Annual Report

ROSEMONT, Ill. (October 15, 2025)—The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Registry Program released the sixth edition of the Shoulder & Elbow Registry (SER) 2025 Annual Report, marking a decade of data collection that continues to drive surgical quality and innovation. The report highlights national trends and provides actionable information to support physicians and patients in advancing orthopaedic care for the shoulder and elbow.

From 2015 to 2024, data were collected from more than 715 submitting surgeons from 136 participating facilities, such as hospitals, private practices and ambulatory surgical centers, spanning 36 states across the United States.

National-level data collection enables the Registry to establish implant survivorship, track revision procedures and enhance the quality of patient care across three modules: shoulder arthroplasty, rotator cuff repair and elbow arthroplasty. The latest report includes 53,541 patient procedures—reflecting a 47% increase in submissions since the 2024 report.

Highlights include:

• Shoulder Arthroplasty – Of the 27,461 procedures submitted from 2015 to 2024, rotator cuff tear was the second largest primary diagnosis. Approximately one third of patients (32.1%) fell into the pre-obesity category, and an additional 51.2% were categorized as obese.
• Rotator Cuff Repair – The majority of 23,267 rotator cuff procedures submitted to SER from 2015 to 2024 were performed arthroscopically, with 42.1% including a concurrent subacromial decompression. Additionally, the two most common comorbidities for all rotator cuff procedures were osteoarthritis (29.4%) and hypertension (22.1%).
• Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) – PROMs collection and analysis is a high-value component that will continue to play an integral part in healthcare quality improvement. This year, the Annual Report included analysis from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Global Health 10 (PROMIS-10) to accompany existing analysis from The Veterans Rand 12-item Health Survey (VR-12) and American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Score (ASES), three of the highest volume PROM tools collected. The inclusion of PROMIS-10 highlights continued improvement in PROMs collection for SER. Other PROM tools collected have not yet reached the 200-assessment minimum threshold set for this analysis; however, it is a goal to incorporate these into future reports.

The SER includes representatives from the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES), the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM), the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA), and the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH). To read and download the complete SER 2025 Annual Report, visit the AAOS’ website. Slides with facts and figures from the report can be found here.