What You Inherited from Your Ancestors: Rotator Cuff Disease

I know that we all inherit many medical problems from our ancestors but this one surprised me: the Risk of Rotator Cuff Disease?

Writing in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American). Robert Z. Tashjian, MD, James M. Farnham, MS, Frederick S. Albright, PhD, Craig C. Teerlink, MS and Lisa A. Cannon-Albright, PhD wrote:

We analyzed a set of patients with diagnosed rotator cuff disease and a known genealogy to describe the familial clustering of affected individuals. The observations of significant excess relatedness of patients and the significantly elevated risks to both close and distant relatives of patients strongly support a heritable predisposition to rotator cuff disease.

Details are available at: http://www.ejbjs.org/cgi/content/abstract/91/5/1136.

For those who do not know what constitutes Rotator Cuff Disease (and that included me until a few minutes ago), the rotator cuff is a group of strong, ropelike fibers (tendons) and muscles in the shoulder. Rotator cuff disorders occur when tissues in the shoulder get irritated or damaged. Rotator cuff disorders include:

• Inflammation of the tendons (tendinitis) or of a bursa (bursitis). In the shoulder, a bursa is a small, fluid-filled sac that serves as a cushion between the tendons and the bones.
• Impingement, in which a tendon is squeezed and rubs against bone.
• Calcium buildup in the tendons, which causes a painful condition called calcific tendinitis.
• Partial or complete tears of the rotator cuff tendons.

Comments

[Jeanne Morse]

Dick:
Coincidently, I seem to be suffering from this disorder at this very minute. It came on about 2 days ago. How do I know if my ancestors had this predisposition? Not all shoulder pain is rotator cuff disease. So I assume that my case is impingement of the tendon due to muscle spasm. djmorse

[Mary L Marks]

Dick,

I am in my 5th month of rotator cuff post surgery. I had a wonderful doctor, no pain, during, after surgery. Obey the doctor and do those exercises. It might of come from someone in family but at my age 77, there are not any left to ask. Mary Marks

[Mary Dillon]

Interesting article. I had rotator cuff surgery 5 days ago for tears in the cuff. I remember my dad also had to have the same surgery when he was in his 70s. That was the first time I'd heard of it. Don't think any of my siblings have had it tho and I'm the youngest. BTW - great Dr., very little discomfort, and have been able to do much more than I thought I would. Looking forward to physical therapy to regain more movement.