Diagnosing the direction of shoulder instability in rugby players.

The muscular characteristics of rugby players may make diagnosing the direction of shoulder instability and labral pathology challenging. This study aimed to assess the accuracy of clinical examination and specifically instability tests, in diagnosing the direction of shoulder instability in rugby players. One-hundred-and-forty rugby players, who had undergone a shoulder stabilization procedure, over a 55-month period, were included in this study. The mean age was 21.5 years with 137 males. Data collected included clinical examination and intraoperative findings. The two were compared to calculate the diagnostic accuracy of special tests for instability. The Anterior Apprehension Test had good sensitivity (82.7%), specificity (100%) and PPV (100%) but poor NPV (55.8%). All posterior instability tests demonstrated a sensitivity of over 85%, but all had a specificity of 25% or less. In 83.6% of cases the direction of instability was correctly identified from history and examination. Anterior instability was correctly diagnosed in 78.9% of cases and posterior in 100.0%. The poor NPV of the anterior apprehension test suggests that clinicians should be suspicious of anterior instability in rugby shoulders even in the light of negative examination findings. Positive posterior instability tests are highly suggestive of posterior instability in rugby players.

Neuralgic amyotrophy is not the most common neurologic disorder of the shoulder: a 78-month prospective study of 60 neurologic shoulder patients in a specialist shoulder clinic.

BACKGROUND: Neuralgic amyotrophy (NA) was first described in 1948. Traditional literature describes a painful attack with sudden onset, followed by paresis, with varied outcomes. Recent studies have suggested NA is currently underdiagnosed. However, a large number of studies detailing NA originate from a small group of sources. Our study compared the onset, diagnosis, investigation, and treatment of all neurologic shoulder conditions to provide comparable data for these studies. METHODS: Data were collected from 60 patients (81.6% male; median age, 41.5 years) during a 78-month period. Patients with a diagnosis of a neurologic disorder of the shoulder with confirmatory electromyogram (EMG) studies were included. RESULTS: NA was diagnosed in 18 patients before the EMG investigation. Of the clinically diagnosed NA patients, only 5 (27.8%) had EMG findings supportive of NA. A further 5 patients with a clinical diagnosis other than NA were diagnosed with NA after EMG findings. Overall, 10 patients (16.6%) in our study were diagnosed with NA after EMG studies. Only 4 (40.0%) reported a sudden onset attack associated with NA. Supraspinatus and infraspinatus were involved in 9 patients (90.0%), suggesting a predictable distribution of muscle involvement. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that NA is overdiagnosed and does not warrant the increased attention suggested by recent articles. The current study also highlights a necessity to perform EMG investigations in all cases of suspected NA because the accuracy of the clinical assessment is poor.