Abstract
BackgroundChronic supraspinatus tendinopathy is a common clinical problem that causes functional and labor disabilities in the population. It is the most frequent cause of shoulder pain. This pathology may be frequently associated to the affectation of the long head of biceps tendon (LHBT), the main stabilizer of the glenohumeral joint together with the supraspinatus. The main aim of this work is to study the prevalence of lesions in LHBT associated to the chronic pathology of the supraspinatus tendon.MethodsA systematic review was carried out between May to July 2013 in the electronic databases: CINAHL, WOK, Medline, Scopus, PEDro, IME (CSIC) and Dialnet. The keywords used were: 1) in English: chronic, supraspinatus “long head of the biceps tendon”, biceps, rotator cuff, tendinosis, tendinopathy, evaluation, examination; 2) in Spanish: supraespinoso, biceps, tendinopatía. Inclusion criteria of the articles included subjects with a previously diagnosed chronic pathology of rotator cuff (RC) without previous surgery or any other pathologies of the shoulder complex. The total number of articles included in the study were five.ResultsThe results show an epidemiological relationship between both tendons. The age of the subjects included in the review was between 35 and 80 years, and some of the studies seem to indicate that the tendinopathy is more frequent in men than in women. The sample size of the studies varies according to the design, the highest being composed of 229 subjects, and the minimum of 28. Not all the articles selected specify the diagnostic testing, though the ones most normally used are arthroscopy, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging and assessment tests. The percentage of associated lesions of LHBT and supraspinatus tendon is between 78.5% and 22%, with a major prevalence in the studies with a smaller sample.ConclusionsThe review of literature corroborates an association between the chronic pathology of the supraspinatus tendon and LHBT due to the epidemiological data. In addition, some authors confirm the existence of an anatomical and functional relationship between LHBT and the supraspinatus tendon, the latter being part of the LHBT pulley.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2474-15-377) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
IntroductionChronic supraspinatus tendinopathy is a common clinical problem that causes functional and labor disabilities in the population
The supraspinatus muscle belongs to the rotator cuff muscles as well as the infraspinatus muscles, subscapularis, teres minor, and the long head of biceps tendon, some authors do not include the latter [1,2,3]
A review of literature was performed in search of a prevalence of lesions associated to long head of biceps tendon (LHBT) and the supraspinatus tendon
Summary
Chronic supraspinatus tendinopathy is a common clinical problem that causes functional and labor disabilities in the population It is the most frequent cause of shoulder pain. The supraspinatus muscle belongs to the rotator cuff muscles as well as the infraspinatus muscles, subscapularis, teres minor, and the long head of biceps tendon, some authors do not include the latter [1,2,3]. It participates in shoulder abduction besides being involved in the compression of the humeral head against the. Whatever the etiology of tendinopathy (impingement, micro-traumatism, vascularization, or degeneration), pain is the most relevant symptom [7,8,10]
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