The Shoulder—The Forgotten Joint. The Makenzie Davidson Memorial Lecture

Abstract

1. If an axial film of the shoulder is not part of the routine examination, 7 or 8 per cent of lesions will be missed. 2. The clinician who makes a diagnosis of periarthritis or frozen shoulder may expect to find an abnormality on the film in more than a third of patients, but in this series there was only 1 per cent who showed calcification in soft tissues. 3. The clinical diagnosis of subacromial bursitis is accompanied by calcification of the bursa or tendons in nearly a third of cases. 4. The patient who suffers a recurrent anterior or posterior dislocation is often in a state of permanent subluxation. 5. There are two distinct types of radiological abnormality—one causing cupping and erosion, and the other causing calcification in the rotator cuff. These seldom occur together. 6. It seems probable that erosion of the anatomical neck indicates that the rotator cuff is torn in all cases.