PERIARTHRITIS OF THE SHOULDER

Abstract

In an effort to elucidate the relationship of trauma, foci of infection and metabolic factors in the etiology of periarthritis of the shoulder and to determine the most efficacious treatment for this condition, we have analyzed a series of 200 cases that have come under our care during the last nine years. We realize that we may be treading on thin ice when we use the term "periarthritis of the shoulder," but it appears to us that this better describes the clinical entity than "painful shoulder," "subdeltoid bursitis," "subacromial bursitis" or "calcifications of the supraspinatus tendon," with which names all are familiar. Although Codman,¹in his classic thesis of this subject, suggested the name "subacromial bursitis," he later demonstrated that when calcification occurred, the deposit was in the tendon of the supraspinatus muscle. This finding was confirmed by Brickner,²Carnett³and others. Calcification, however, does not explain