Comparison of diagnostic value of shoulder joint contrast-enhanced ultrasonography,high-frequency ultrasonogra-phy,and MRI in the classification of rotator cuff injuries
YANG Yingqing
QIAN Lihai
WEN Xiangming
KONG Xianghai
Abstract：Objective To explore the diagnostic value of shoulder contrast-enhanced ultrasound(CEUS),high-frequency ul-trasonography,and MRI in classifying rotator cuff injuries.Methods Twenty-three patients with rotator cuff injuries were se-lected and underwent shoulder arthroscopy,CEUS of the shoulder joint,high-frequency ultrasound examination of the shoulder joint,and MRI examination of the shoulder joint to assess the extent and type of supraspinatus muscle injury.Using shoulder ar-throscopy as the gold standard,the sensitivity,specificity,and accuracy of CEUS,high-frequency ultrasound examination,and MRI in diagnosing rotator cuff injury types were calculated.The Kappa consistency test was conducted between the results of three types of examinations and those of shoulder arthroscopy.ROC curves were plotted to comprehensively evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the three examination methods in classifying rotator cuff injuries.Results Shoulder arthroscopy revealed 12 cases of full-thickness tears,8 cases of partial tears,and 3 cases of no tears.The diagnostic accuracy of CEUS,high-frequency ultrasound,and MRI was 91.30%,65.22%,and 86.96%,respectively,with AUC of 0.913,0.655,and 0.818,respectively.The diagnostic ac-curacy rates of the three methods for partial tears were 86.96%,69.57%,and 86.96%,respectively,with AUC of 0.871,0.650,and 0.842,respectively.The diagnostic accuracy rates of the three methods for no tears were 95.65%,69.57%,and 91.30%,re-spectively,with AUC of 0.833,0.542,and 0.808,respectively.Kappa value for the agreement of the three methods with the diag-nostic gold standard were 0.775,0.701,0.245,respectively,with CEUS>MRI>high-frequency ultrasound.Conclusion CEUS of the shoulder joint can visually display the location and extent of rotator cuff injuries,effectively evaluate the type of rotator cuff injury,and its diagnostic efficacy is higher than that of high-frequency ultrasound examination and comparable to MRI.CEUS sig-nificantly improves the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound for rotator cuff tears,demonstrating comparable efficacy to MRI.
Keywords：Contrast-enhanced ultrasound examinationHigh-frequency ultrasound examinationMagnetic resonance imag-ingRotator cuff tear
Publication Date：2026-01-30
Online Publishing Date：2026-03-20(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 111-115,125 )