Open Access

Jean Michel Hovsepian, Carlos Daniel Moreno Castillo

• Objective: the prevalence of rotator cuff tears is very common, at the present time their causes have not been completely understood. Predicting these lesions are extremely difficult and has been object of study for the past decades. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is an association between the critical shoulder angle and rotator cuff tears in patients of the University Hospital of Caracas. Method: a descriptive cross-sectional study was performed. Fifty volunteers were obtained between 50 and 85 years of old. One hundred bilaterally shoulders were examined, and they had AP true shoulder radiographs and a musculoskeletal ultrasound. The radiographs were analyzed and the critical shoulder angle were determined, classifying them with an angle higher than 35° and lower than 35°. In the ultrasound was determined the status of the rotator cuff, and were classified as rotator cuff tear and non-rotator cuff tear. Results: the mean critical shoulder angle was 34.2 ° ±Objective: the prevalence of rotator cuff tears is very common, at the present time their causes have not been completely understood. Predicting these lesions are extremely difficult and has been object of study for the past decades. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is an association between the critical shoulder angle and rotator cuff tears in patients of the University Hospital of Caracas. Method: a descriptive cross-sectional study was performed. Fifty volunteers were obtained between 50 and 85 years of old. One hundred bilaterally shoulders were examined, and they had AP true shoulder radiographs and a musculoskeletal ultrasound. The radiographs were analyzed and the critical shoulder angle were determined, classifying them with an angle higher than 35° and lower than 35°. In the ultrasound was determined the status of the rotator cuff, and were classified as rotator cuff tear and non-rotator cuff tear. Results: the mean critical shoulder angle was 34.2 ° ± 3.0°. There was a significant correlation between the critical shoulder angle higher than 35° and rotator cuff tears (p = 0.001). A significant different was not found between the critical shoulder angle and rotator cuff tears regarding the age and the sex of the volunteers. Conclusion: these findings suggests that critical shoulder angles higher than 35° could help predict rotator cuff tears. This suggests that the diversity of the individual anatomy could produce biomechanical changes in degenerative joint disease.…