Abstract:[Objective] To evaluate the impact of subacromial spur location on the clinical outcome of arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. [Methods] A retrospective study was conducted on 75 patients who underwent arthroscopic treatment for rotator cuff tear complicated with subacromial osteophyte in our department from February 2018 to August 2020. According to the location of subacromial osteophyte deter- mined, 39 patients were fall into the anterior type, 22 cases were of the lateral type and 14 cases were of the medial type. The documents re- garding to perioperative period, follow- up and radiographs were compared among the three groups. [Results] All patients had operation completed successfully with no significant differences in operative time, total incision length, intraoperative blood loss, length of hospital stay and incision healing among 3 groups (P>0.05) . The lateral type had significantly more greater osteophytes removed, associated with significantly larger rotator cuff tear, than the anterior type and medial type groups (P<0.05) . As time went during the follow-up lasted for (15.39±1.08) months on average, the VAS scores decreased significantly (P<0.05) , whereas Constant-Muley and UCLA scores increased significantly in all the 3 groups (P<0.05) . Although there were no statistically significant differences in VAS scores among the three groups at the corresponding time points (P>0.05) , the lateral type group had significantly lower Constant-Muley and UCLA scores than the anteri- or and medial type groups (P<0.05) , whereas with no significant difference between the anterior and medial type groups (P>0.05) . Radio- graphically, acromiohumeral distance (AHD) significantly increased in all the 3 groups, whereas critical shoulder angle (CSA) significantly decreased only in lateral type group (P<0.05) , and acromion index (AI) remained unchanged in all the 3 groups by the end of follow-up compared with those before surgery (P>0.05) . [Conclusion] The location of subacromial spur has a great influence on postoperative shoul- der function recovery, the anterior and medial subacromial osteophytes have better postoperative prognosis in term of shoulder function than lateral ones.