Partial Rotator Cuff Tears

Partial rotator cuff tears are a common cause of shoulder pain. It is not uncommon for most people to have an MRI report that mentions a partial rotator cuff tear. That tend to leads to a lot of fear, because most of you assume that a tear of any kind simply can’t be normal. For many of you a partial tear is a normal age appropriate change.  It may or may not require treatment, and most do not require surgery.  Skip down to the videos below if interested. Otherwise read on to learn more about this common shoulder condition.

Partial rotator cuff tears are far more common than full rotator cuff tears.  The term partial refers to how much of the thickness of the rotator cuff is involved. The rotator cuff tendons are a thick structure.  If only a portion of it is frayed or injured then we call it a partial (see image to the right or below).  These images of frayed tendons can be alarming, but these are common, and mostly normal changes that occur as we age.  Not all partial tears are due to aging.   Some are due to a sports injury too.

Common sports related rotator cuff pain can be caused by rotator cuff tendinosis, partial thickness rotator cuff tears, and full thickness tears.  Although injuries do happen and account for a small percentage of partial rotator cuff tears, the majority of you do not recall injuring your shoulder.  Remember, that is because your rotator cuff has simply started to degenerate or wear out.  In pitchers or overhead athletes, these tears can occur due to overload of the tendons.  That means that the tendons simply started to fail due to too much stress or too much activity.

As rotator cuff tendinosis progresses or worsens, the rotator cuff can develop a partial tear.  Most people with partial cuff injuries do not require surgery, however, if surgery becomes necessary, new techniques allow us to potentially heal partial tears.

As Adam Rubin reported, Jonathan Niese, the NY Mets left-handed pitcher developed shoulder pain and was diagnosed with a partial thickness rotator cuff tear. Niese’s pain began during a game last week.  This is a classic case with regards to the onset of pain in an overhead athlete. Eventually the rotator cuff can not stand the strain of pitching and it starts to fray or tear.

What is a Partial Rotator Cuff Tear:

We actually refer to these as partial “thickness” rotator cuff tears, as opposed to full thickness rotator cuff tears.

The rotator cuff are a series of four muscles which come together to cover the top of our arm bone in a “cuff” of tissue … which we refer to as the rotator cuff.  In time, due to aging or repetitive stress – similar to the reason your favorite jeans have holes around the knees — the tendon tissue starts to wear thin and change its internal structure.  This rotator cuff degeneration can progress, and eventually the rotator cuff tissue will start to lift off from its normal attachment to the bone and a partial rotator cuff tear is borne (see image- red arrow). Given more time, all the tendon tissue might separate in a localized area producing a full thickness rotator cuff tear.

Treatment of a Partial Rotator Cuff Tear

Many partial rotator cuff tears can now be healed with a biological patch which we place during a minimally invasive or arthroscopic procedure.  Recent research shows these partial tears are capable of healing and regenerating. 

But many people with partial rotator cuff tears, even high level athletes will be nursed back to health with physical therapy.  Certain people with partial rotator cuff tears have lost full internal rotation (the ability to reach up your back).  That motion will need to be restored by your therapist if your goal is to fully recover. Some patients may choose to exercise on their own.. and products such as The Rotator might assist you if you have lost motion.   In patients with persistent pain due to a partial rotator cuff tear, despite rest and therapy —  an injection can be performed.  Injection treatments for partial rotator cuff tears include cortisone, anti-inflammatories, as well as PRP and Stem Cells.  The use of PRP and stem cells for the treatment of partial rotator cuff tears is controversial and very active research is underway in this area.

Here is video I recently did on whether or not partial rotator cuff tears can heal without surgery, and who may need to consider surgery.

Partial Tears and Bone Spurs

Many of you are told by your doctor that you have a partial tear of your shoulder because you have a bone spur.  I can not stress strongly enough that this simply isn’t true.  For many decades Orthopedic Surgeons felt that rotator cuff damage was caused by bone spurs.  It was never proven to be true, but instead was adopted by surgeons worldwide.  There has been a lot of research into this concept over the last 5-7 years.  All of these studies show that the bone spur is not the cause of rotator cuff pathology, and removal of the bone spur has not been shown to be any more effective than a placebo.   This video below goes into more detail about the concept of bone spurs and rotator cuff pain.

Surgery for partial rotator cuff tears

It bears repeating, the vast majority of you will not need to consider surgery for your partial tear.  You will respond to physical therapy, injection or simply by waiting.  There is no harm in waiting.  Some research also shows that these tears can heal on their own.  Some tears might progress or become larger over time.  We can not predict who that will occur in.  It does not happen quickly either.

If non-surgical treatments of your partial rotator cuff tear does not enable you to return to your desired quality of life, then you can consider arthroscopic rotator cuff surgery for your partial tear. During surgery, which is performed arthroscopically, the partially torn area of the rotator cuff is smoothed out, and we can place a “bioinductive”  patch over the degenerative or torn region.That patch might be able to heal a partial tear.  It works in some, but doesn’t work in everyone.  And surgery carries risks such as infection, stiffness, a reaction to the patch, blood clots, and so on.  That gives further support to our message that surgery for these rotator cuff issues should be your last choice, and should only be considered if everything else fails to improve your pain.

Over time… that patch might begin to integrate into the rotator cuff possibly leading to healing of the tear.  The patch could potentially reverse the degeneration or tendinosis of the rotator cuff which could prevent your pain from coming back again.
The vast majority of people with partial rotator cuff tears will improve with physical therapy alone and not require surgery.