MRI on rotator cuff and shoulder joint pathologies

Abstract

The shoulder joint is an elegant anatomic structure formed by the humerus, clavicle and the scapula; its range of motion exceeds all other joints, yet under most circumstances, it is stable. The shoulder complex comprises of three joints namely the sternoclavicular, acromioclavicular, and glenohumeral joints. The factors which aid on to this progress including age, occupation, trauma, acromion type, slope and position, acromioclavicular joint degeneration, proximal migration of the humeral head, bony spurs compressing on the tendons. The most commonly affected rotator cuff tendon being the supraspinatus. The tears are further classified as complete/full thickness and partial tears depending on the involvement of the whole or part of the tendon. Being one of the most important stabiliser of the shoulder joint, rotator cuff pathologies can cause major joint dysfunction, like stiffness, restricted/painful joint movements even to the extent of restricting daily activities our study aims to describe MRI characteristics of shoulder and rotator cuff pathologies. And to describe the distribution of rotator cuff pathologies in terms of age, gender, symptomatology and secondary changes/sequelae study, the rotator cuff abnormalities were common in the sixth and seventh decades of life. The incidence of predisposing factors for rotator cuff tears was also found to increase with age as seen in our study, type II and III acromions, acromioclavicular joint arthropathies, osteophytosis/spurs are common in the sixth and seventh decades of life. We noticed in our patients that pain followed by stiffness resulting in reduced range of movement across the shoulder joint is very common. MRI imaging was useful in effectively ruling out the other causes of shoulder pain, overall features conclude that magnetic resonance imaging is very useful in depicting rotator cuff disease diagnosis along with the predisposing factors like the acromion type and orientation, reduction in coracohumeral distance, reduced acromioclavicular distance and other associated features like effusion, bursitis and bone changes. Further research with a larger sample size for a longer study period is suggested to draw broader conclusions and to strengthen the findings of the present study.