Shoulder Widening Surgery

Q: Dr. Eppley,I have a question regarding shoulder widening surgery. Have you ever performed a clavicle osteotomy or know of anyone having this done? Would widening of the clavicle in turn move the scapula? I know its extreme but do you think this is safe and effective? I’ve been researching on surgeries to broaden shoulders and I’m very interested in the clavicle osteotomy but there is hardly any information on it. You are the only expert in this field that has at least talked about this procedure. Please could you shed light on this operation.Thank you.

A: There is very little information in regards to clavicular osteotomy because it would be considered an ‘extreme’ surgery in the quest for wider shoulders. There are other more conventional forms of shoulder widening that would be considered equally effective including deltoid (shoulder) implants and fat injections.

Clavicular osteotomies would be considered only for the most of motivated of men for the following:

1) Only one shoulder is done at a time with a 3 to 6 month spacing between the two sides.

2) Recovery would be considered similar to that of a fractured clavicle.

3) It requires plate and screw fixation with an interpositional allogeneic bone graft.

4) There will be a resultant scar over the clavicular osteotomy site.

5) Clavicular gap widening would be 2 to 2.5 cms maximum.

For all of these reasons it takes a very highly motivated person to consider this approach to shoulder widening surgery.

Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana