Relative and absolute reliability of ultrasound measurements for the thickness of the soft tissue around the shoulder joint of young normal subjects.
Nobuhisa Ohya, Takumi Yamada, Yoshinao Satoh and 1 others
PMID 28533624WHAT IT FOUND
Ultrasound measurements of shoulder soft tissue thickness were repeatable in 11 young healthy students.
Changes larger than 0.26 mm in supraspinatus tendon, 0.18 mm in subacromial bursa, or 0.23 mm in biceps tendon may be real, not measurement noise.
Key findings
01Repeating the ultrasound measurements on the same day gave good to excellent repeatability for supraspinatus tendon, subacromial bursa, and biceps tendon thickness.
02The minimal detectable change values were 0.26 for supraspinatus tendon, 0.18 for subacromial bursa, and 0.23 for biceps tendon.
03The 95% confidence intervals for mean differences between repeated measurements were −0.07 to 0.21 for supraspinatus tendon, −0.04 to 0.10 for subacromial bursa, and −0.10 to 0.13 for biceps tendon.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only 11 young healthy students were studied, and the reliability table reports n=22, so the sample was small. The participants were healthy young adults, not patients with adhesive capsulitis and not older adults, who are more commonly affected. Validity was not examined against another measurement system such as MRI. Reliability was tested only on the same day, about 1 minute apart, so it does not show whether measurements remain stable over time. Only one physical therapist performed the ultrasound scans, so the study does not show whether different examiners would get the same results.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that ultrasound soft tissue thickness measures diagnose adhesive capsulitis or prove treatment effects. This study tested same-day repeatability in 11 healthy young students, did not include patients with adhesive capsulitis, did not validate the ultrasound measurements against MRI, and did not test different examiners.