Ultrasound-detected pathologies cluster into groups with different clinical outcomes: data from 3000 community referrals for shoulder pain

Background Ultrasound is increasingly used to evaluate shoulder pain, but the benefits of this are unclear. In this study, we examined whether ultrasound-defined pathologies have implications for clinical outcomes. Methods We extracted reported pathologies from 3000 ultrasound scans of people with shoulder pain referred from primary care. In latent class analysis (LCA), we identified whether individual pathologies clustered in groups. Optimal group number was determined by the minimum Bayesian information criterion. A questionnaire was sent to all patients scanned over a 12-month period (n = 2... Mehr ...