Research that changes practice

Dr. Horner served as principal investigator of the NO PAin trial, a multicentre randomized controlled trial testing an opioid-sparing pain protocol after knee and shoulder arthroscopy. The results were published in JAMA — among the most widely read medical journals in the world — and covered by MSN, Fox News, Medscape and other major outlets. The work has since informed the Arthroscopy Association of Canada's official position statement on opioid prescribing after arthroscopic surgery.

A sustained body of work on hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement, much of it at five-year follow-up and using propensity-matched study designs. These studies examine which patients do well and which do not — competitive athletes, revision cases, workers' compensation patients, hips with early arthritis, staged bilateral surgery — and have been published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy and Sports Health.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses spanning stemless and reverse shoulder arthroplasty, subscapularis-sparing approaches, glenoid osteotomy for posterior instability, failed SLAP repair and rotator cuff augmentation. This work has appeared in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery, Arthroscopy, HSS Journal and Shoulder & Elbow, and helped shape how these procedures are selected and performed.

Research on osteochondral allograft matching, meniscal allograft transplantation at mid-term follow-up, marrow stimulation in soccer players and the management of meniscal ramp lesions — all directed at preserving a patient's own joint for as long as possible before replacement becomes necessary.

More than fifty systematic reviews and meta-analyses across sports medicine, arthroplasty and trauma, alongside contributions to the Evidence-Based Orthopaedics textbook and ESSKA and ISAKOS instructional material. Dr. Horner also serves as an invited peer reviewer for nineteen journals, including AJSM, Arthroscopy, KSSTA, JSES and Scientific Reports (Nature).