Reminder - J&J ATI Rotator Cuff clinical trial update coming soon, page-76

Was talking to a mate of mine this morning about a rotator cuff issue (he has had an MRI). His words:

"It was bizzare how i saw 3 docs with 3 different opinions:

1. Small tear in rotator cuff and labrum, i think surgery is your best course of action.to be able to play golf, tennis etc
2. Significant tear in rotator cuff, labrum is fine. Surgery essential
3. Small tear in rotator, Surgery not essential at this stage. Frozen shoulder is the main inhibitor re pain and reduced range of.motion currently. Physio and will re assess in 6 weeks."

Not bizarre at all, such inconsistency in medical advice and opinion not endemic to Orthopedics alas. A good insight into why the take up of regenerative treatments by the medical industry in Australia is so slow. So much inconsistency in simple diagnosis - he has a medium sized labrum tear (2'o'clock to 6'o'clock) and a large tear (20mm) in his supraspinatus near insertion.

Hopefully he may be able to get ATI. I'd advise him to get mesenchymal stem cells in the labrum too, but that's another story.

I shake my head at the Ortho' specialists in this country sometimes. It gives you good insight into why there is so much debate over treatments and outcomes when they cannot even offer decent and consistent diagnosis on very common injury. As someone reminded me when I was in a similar situation, its not even that any of them will be right either. And people wonder why its so hard for companies like OCC to progress their treatments in the medical fraternity....