1998 Volume 22 Issue 2 Pages 165-168
Considering that the cystic changes in the heads of the humerus on MRIs of patients with a throwing injury may be ascribable to the stress fracture, we followed-up patients with such changes on MRIs to determine whether repairs occurred or not.
The MRIs showed a low-intensity cysti c area on T1-weighted images and a high-intensity cystic area on T2 *- weighted images in 4 cases.3 of these cases were followed-up. The subjects were aged between 16 and 25 years, and the right shoulder was affected in 2 cases and the left in 1 case. They were instructed to refrain from throwing and external rotation of the shoulder from their first hospital visit. Subsequently, MRIs were repeated at intervals of about two months.
Two patients developed symptoms after changing from a sof t baseball to a regulation one and in one patient after changing positions from second to third baseman. However, the symptoms were resolved after the initial prohibitions of throwing and external rotation in all of these patients.
The cystic change disappeared in 1 patient, decreased in 1 patient with the ep iphyseal line. However, it remained unchanged in 1 patient without an epiphyseal line. We suggest that the cause of a cystic change was the stress fracture in cases with an epiphyseal line. However, the cause of the cystic change was a posterosuperior impingement in the case without an epiphyseal line.
