Up to a third of people worldwide have shoulder pain; it's one of the most common musculoskeletal complaints. But medical imaging might not reveal the problem—in fact, it could even cloud it.
In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, 99 percent of adults over 40 were found to have at least one abnormality in a rotator cuff on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The rotator cuff is the group of muscles and tendons in a shoulder joint that keeps the upper arm bone securely in the shoulder socket—and is often blamed for pain and other symptoms. The trouble is, the vast majority of people in the study had no shoulder problems.
The finding calls into question the growing use of MRIs to try to diagnose shoulder pain—and, in turn, the growing problem of overtreatment of rotator cuff (RC) abnormalities, which includes partial- and full-thickness tears as well as signs of tendinopathy (tendon swelling and thickening).