Shoulder Magnetic Resonance Imaging Part 1: Descriptive Frequency and Outcome in a Teaching Hospital.

Abstract

Abstract Aim: To evaluate the experience of the University of Jordan Hospital regarding shoulder magnetic resonance imaging and to compare our findings with those published in the medical literature. Methods: In our study 986 shoulder MRI exams performed over a period of 4 years and 3 months were reviewed. Of those 267 were normal, of which 106 (39.7%) were females and 161 (60.3%) were males with percentage of (27%). These normal cases were excluded, while the remaining 719 patients (73%) with variable abnormalities were included in our study. Results: A total of 719 patients’ MRIs were included with a mean age of 52.8 years (±13.2), with an age range of 18-81 years. Supraspinatus tendon is the most common muscle tendon affected by both full thickness tear (87 cases) (12.1%) and partial thickness tear (608 cases) (84.6%). We found a significant mean difference in age between patients with supraspinatus full thickness tear and normal tendon, with a mean difference of 11.5 years (CI 4.44 to 19.5), p< 0.001. Conclusion: Our parients shoulder MRI findings surprisingly showed the frequency of acromioclavicular joint degenerative changes to be much higher than those in the published literature, while the gleno-labral pathologies were much less in frequency. Other MRI shoulder pathologies were more or less in concordance with the published literature.