Currently, imaging techniques such as MRI, musculoskeletal ultrasound and even arthroscopy are widely used in the diagnosis of rotator cuff tears, mostly due to a lack of evidence regarding the predictive value of patient characteristics, history-taking and clinical examination.
Although some tests had a high specificity, individual clinical examination tests only had a moderate diagnostic value. The only two predictive factors that remained in the prediction model were age and the Neer test – the predictive value of this model was relatively low, and thus, the use of imaging and/ or invasive techniques to confirm the diagnosis of a rotator cuff tear is still recommended.
> From: Van Kampen et al., J Orthop Surg Res 9 (2014-12-03 08:13:42) 70 . All rights reserved to The Author(s). Click here for the online summary.