MRI and Ultrasound: Will it find your shoulder tear?
Hello
So many people want the answers for why they have the shoulder pain that they have.
Most of our clients have spendlarge amounts of moneyto go for tests to get the answers they crave.
This week we will look at how effective ultrasound and getting an MRI will beto find the cause of your shoulder pain, especially shoulder pain caused by tears in the rotator cuff.
Rotator cuffs tears being the most common cause of shoulder pain there is.
The study is called “Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance arthrography (MRA) and ultrasonography (US) for assessing rotator cuff tears in people with shoulder pain for whom surgery is being considered”
This is a systematic review. The best evidence we have.
In the study they told us “We included 20 studies of people with suspected rotator cuff tears (1147 shoulders), of which six evaluated MRI and US (252 shoulders), or MRA and US (127 shoulders) in the same people.”
They found that “MRI, MRA and US have good diagnostic accuracy and any of these tests could equally be used for detection of full thickness tears in people with shoulder pain for whom surgery is being considered.” Meaning they were very good if the muscle was torn right though, and you wouldn’t be able to use your shoulder at all.
This kind of tear is the rare kind. Rare meaning here that you are unlikely to have this.
They also found “However, both MRI and US may have poor sensitivity for detecting partial thickness tears, and the sensitivity of US may be much lower than that of MRI.”
This means that if the muscle is not torn all the way through, this being the most common kind. Neither an MRI or an US will be able to see and find it.
So, you could be spending all your money to have this done, just for them not to be able to know for certain what is going on.
The next thing they will likely tell you is how you will need surgery.
Do you want to be told you need surgery when the research says they cannot tell for sure, OR do you want to try something else?
Jason
