MRIs and radiographs can be useful in evaluating unilateral shoulder pain in the outpatient setting, according to research published in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology.
Researchers studied 210 patients with shoulder pain who underwent 302 imaging studies from January 2013 to September 2015.
The key details to know:
1. MRIs were the most likely to be useful in all clinical scenarios. They were also more likely than X-rays to be considered high-utility.
2. Most X-rays were categorized as low-utility.
3. Patient injury characteristics were not significant predictors for useful imaging.
"Our study suggests that both radiographs and MRI are useful in the evaluation of adult unilateral shoulder pain in the outpatient setting. MRI appears to be the most useful imaging modality in terms of helping guide diagnosis and treatment selection. This serves as a potential first step towards the development of evidence-based imaging algorithms that can be used and tested in future studies," researchers concluded.