ABSTRACT

We searched the efficacy of ultrasound (US) for rotator cuff lesions by comparing the ultraso-und findings with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) results in patients with shoulder pain.

Blinded to MRI results ;shoulder US was performed to 58 patients who had un-dergone MRI.MRI results were compared to US findings in patients with shoulder pain and rotator cuff pathologies.

In the supraspinatus tendon;for full-thickness tears the sensitivity and specificity of US was %95,for partial tears the sensitivity was 71% and the specificity was 98%,for supraspinatus tendinosis the sensitivity was 82%,the specificity was 95%. We could not do reliable statistical analysis becouse of insufficiant number of infraspinatus and subscapularis pathologies and so we evaluated only supraspinatus pathologies.

US is an non-invaziv ,cheap and easly accessible imaging metod.Especially for the cases who we think that they have a supraspinatus pathologies the first imaging metod should be US due to its high sensitivity and specificity.

Keywords: Rotator Cuff Pathologies, Shoulder US, MRI