Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic & Related Surgery
Original ArticleDiagnostic Value of Clinical Tests for Infraspinatus Tendon Tears
Section snippets
Patient Recruitment
A total of 115 consecutive patients who presented with shoulder pain and were scheduled for shoulder arthroscopy from March 2015 to April 2017 were prospectively enrolled in the study. The inclusion criterion was that a shoulder arthroscopy was scheduled. Patients with the following characteristics were excluded from the study: (1) shoulder instability, (2) adhesive capsulitis, (3) calcifying tendinitis, or (4) any history of previous shoulder surgery including rotator cuff repair. Twenty-four
Results
A total of 19 full-thickness tears, 8 partial tears, and 64 intact infraspinatus tendons were encountered. Concomitant pathologies are presented in Table 2. Stratification of the results with concomitant shoulder's diseases is reported in Table 3.
The analysis of the diagnostic value of the performed tests showed that the drop sign (P = .02), the RERT (P = .02), and the ERLS (P = .02) correlated significantly with the intraoperative findings. Considering the AUC, the RERT (0.673) and the drop
Discussion
The most important finding of the present study was that the drop sign and RERT in isolation had a significant correlation with the intraoperative findings. The RERT showed better diagnostic precision and a greater correlation with the intraoperative findings than the drop sign. Furthermore, for the RERT, muscle weakness was found to possess the highest potential as an interpreting criterion as compared with pain or either pain and/or weakness. The results of the current study also demonstrate
Conclusions
The results of the present study indicate that out of all the clinical tests investigated, the drop sign and the RERT were in isolation able to accurately diagnose tears of the infraspinatus tendon. Only muscle weakness should be considered when interpreting the RERT because of its greater AUC values and correlation with the arthroscopic findings. The present study also showed that the analyzed tests are not capable of distinguishing between partial- and full-thickness tears of the
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The authors report that they have no conflicts of interest in the authorship and publication of this article. Full ICMJE author disclosure forms are available for this article online, as supplementary material.
See commentary on page 1348