Chronic Supraspinatus Tendinopathy

[Gulshan Babbar]

HI
Just wanted to confirm if supraspinatus looks tendinopathic are we allowed to use the term chronic supraspinatus tendinopathy. One of the Radiologist disagrees with me that there is no such thing as chronic supraspinatus tendinopathy.
Please help
Thanks

[Stephen Bird]

Hi Gulshan,

Tendinopathy is a word I am not that fond of.

It is an umbrella term that simply means the tendon is diseased.

But it does not say what sort of pathology it is specifically suffering from.

So I like the word tendinopathy on a referral, but not on a report.

If it has tendinosis, this can be divided into the following:

Reactive tendinosis: the tendon appears sonographically pretty normal, but it is tender.

Dysrepair phase tendinosis: The tendon is swollen, hypoechoic, heterogeneous, and may have flow in it if you look with Doppler.

Degenerative phase tendinosis: Like disrepair, but with areas of cystic degeneration and dystrophic calcification present.

I suspect what you are seeing is degenerative phase tendinosis.

These criteria are from Australian research done by Jill Cook and Craig Purdham.

If you would like the article, email be personally and I can send you a copy.

Steve.

[Author]

Posts