Shoulder scans after 40 — Nearly always abnormal, rarely useful
If you've ever had an MRI for a sore shoulder, there's a good chance the scan showed a rotator cuff tear or another abnormality. And there's a good chance your doctor said that explained the source of your pain. But that link may be far weaker than assumed.
If you’ve been told your shoulder pain is explained by a tear or abnormality showing up on an MRI scan, there is a reasonable chance that finding would have been there whether you had pain or not. A large Finnish study has found that rotator cuff abnormalities are pretty much universal in people over 40, with MRI findings so similar that the scan could not reliably tell a painful shoulder from a pain-free one. The findings are signi...
Published 18 August, 2026