BACKGROUND The natural history of rotator cuff tears can be unfavorable as patients develop fatty infiltration and muscle atrophy that is often associated with a loss of muscle strength and shoulder function. To facilitate study of possible biologic mechanisms involved in early degenerative changes to rotator cuff muscle and tendon tissues, the objective of this study was to develop a joint cap...

Massive, irreparable rotator cuff tears are challenging to treat and associated with pain and severe limitation in shoulder elevation due to the proximal migration of the humeral head and, consequently, subacromial impingement. Furthermore, retraction of the tendons in combination with fat infiltration and muscular weakness results in unpredictable treatment outcomes. While conservative treatme...

We have studied cellular and vascular changes in different stages of full thickness tears of the rotator cuff. We examined biopsies from the supraspinatus tendon in 40 patients with chronic rotator cuff tears who were undergoing surgery and compared them with biopsies from four uninjured subscapularis tendons. Morphological and immunocytochemical methods using monoclonal antibodies directed aga...

BACKGROUND Long head biceps (LHB) degeneration in combination with rotator cuff tears can be a source of chronic shoulder pain. LHB tenotomy is an approved surgical procedure for pain reduction and improvement of joint function, however, the pathophysiology of LHB degeneration is not fully understood. In the literature, neoangiogenesis in tendon tissue has previously been shown to be associated...

Although tendon healing is not a prerequisite for successful long-term outcomes after rotator cuff surgery in terms of pain relief, activity, mobility, or patient satisfaction, [1-5] several reports have demonstrated improved outcomes in patients who have documented healing of their rotator cuffs, compared with patients who developed recurrent tears. [4,6,7] Healed tendons have been shown to le...

*Shore, BJ; +**Kedgley, AE;*Drosdowech, DS; *King, GJW; *Athwal, GS; **Johnston, JA; *Faber, KJ *Hand and Upper Limb Centre, Department of Orthopaedics, University of Western Ontario. +**Bioengineering Research Laboratory, St. Joseph’s Health Care London, Hand and Upper Limb Centre, 268 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, CANADA, N6A 4L6, 519-646-6000, Fax: 519-646-6049 [email protected] INTRODUCT...

Rotator cuff tear is one of the most common causes of shoulder dysfunction. Gene expression analysis may be a useful tool for understanding tendon tears and the failure of cuff healing, and reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) has become an effective method for such studies. However, this technique requires the use of suitable reference genes for data normaliza...

In evaluating patients complaining of shoulder pain, ultrasonography is an emerging imaging tool due to convenience, low cost, high sensitivity and specificity. However, normative values of ultrasound dimensions of the shoulder to be compared with pathologic findings in Korean adults are not provided yet. We evaluated the ultrasound dimensions of the rotator cuff, long head of biceps tendon, de...