Correlation between the Findings of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Shoulder and Shoulder Arthroscopy

Introduction: Shoulder pain is a significant cause of decreased functional activity of an individual. The overall prevalence of shoulder pain is 16-26%, which makes it the third most common cause among musculoskeletal complaints. The cause of pain in the shoulder is often difficult to evaluate, and diagnosis is usually ambiguous because physical findings are poorly reproducible. The diagnosis therefore, requires multiple imaging modalities. Therapeutic arthroscopy is “the current gold standard” for diagnosing shoulder pathologies, however the procedure is invasive, needs hospitalisation and anaesthesia. Aim: To correlate the findings of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) shoulder with the findings of shoulder arthroscopy and subsequently determine sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of MRI in diagnosing shoulder pathologies. Materials and Methods: Forty two patients suffering from chronic shoulder pain for a period of more than six weeks, having symptoms of instability, clinical signs of tear or impingement, or functional limitation of the affected shoulder were included in this study. The patients included were in the age group of 18-80 years. Subsequently, MRI followed by arthroscopy of the shoulder was done and the findings of MRI were compared to that of arthroscopy using kappa statistics. Results: In this study along with rotator cuff tear (26 patients), subacromial bursitis (26 patients), was the other most common shoulder pathology. The sensitivity of MRI in detecting shoulder pathologies varied from poor (0.28) for Superior Labrum Anterior Posterior (SLAP) lesion to very good (0.88) for Bankart’s tear and (0.8) for synovial chondromatosis to excellent for rotator cuff tears (0.92). Although sensitivity of MRI was variable for different shoulder pathologies, specificity was comparatively high in detecting all of the above shoulder pathologies. The accuracy of MRI was highest (0.95) in diagnosing synovial chondromatosis, followed by bankart’s lesion (0.92), and rotator cuff tear (0.88). Conclusion: MRI is a very useful and effective tool in diagnosing various shoulder pathologies with exception of SLAP tears where its sensitivity diminishes significantly.