Purpose
Calcific tendinopathy of the rotator cuff is a very commondiseaseamong 40-50 year-old women and it represents the cause of 40% of shoulder pain episodes.
Ultrasound is considered to be the best imaging modality to assess thepathologyand treat it with a high effectiveness,
low-cost and a few invasive intervention.
The aim of this paper is:
- To review clinical and imaging features of calcific tendinosis of the rotator cuff;
- To report briefly the scanning technique to check up the rotator cuff muscles and to to...
Methods and Materials
Weenrolled40 patients that underwent US guided infiltration with lithotripsy by a PhilipsEPIQ7(Amsterdam,
The Netherlands) US device with a MSK default set 12-5Hz probe.
The data achieved included the amount (ml) of anesthetic and steroid drug injected and the eventually associated shoulder pathologies.
Every patient was given a Visual Analogue Scale(VAS) painquestionnaire and tested 3 weeks after the intervention.
The procedure was made up of a diagnostic step thatevaluated the rotator cuff muscle and the following infiltration phases.
Pain VAS scale is one of the most...
Results
In 40 patients,
we observed a female to male ratio of 3 to 1,
with a mean age of 60,7.
Mostof the patients hadsopraspinatus tendoncalcification (no.
36),
followed by infraspinatus (n.3) and subscapularis (n.1).
In 45%of the patients US allowed the diagnosis ofassociated shoulder pathology such as degerative rotator cuff tears,
tendinosis and bursitis.
Injection of 2ml of ialuronic acyd and of 4ml of methylprednisolone were used per patient.
The VAS evaluation showed abreakdown painof 69%.
The mean pain valuebefore the treatmentresulted to be8 (SD:3,6)...
Conclusion
Calcific tendinopathy has a high prevalence in the adult popolation and affects 2.5% to 7.3% of healthy shoulders and it is the cause of syntomatic painful shoulders in above 20% of cases.
Women are more frequently affected with a ratio of 3:1.
The tendons most damaged are the rotator cuff’s tendons,,
in particular the areas in which there’s a local hipoxiemia or metabolic factors that determine a change in the tendon’s fibres that conduces to a fibrocartilagineas metaplasia with deposition of calcium.
We have 4...
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