Reliability of supraspinatus intramuscular fatty infiltration estimates on T1-weighted MRI in potential candidates for rotator cuff repair surgery: full-thickness tear versus high-grade partial-thickness tear

Objective Patients with supraspinatus high-grade partial-thickness tear or full-thickness tear are potential candidates for rotator cuff repair surgery. We sought (1) to compare supraspinatus intramuscular fatty infiltration between these groups by Goutallier grade, fuzzy C-means and an orthopaedic surgeon visible percentage estimate, (2) and to determine the reliability of each method. Materials and methods We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study of supraspinatus intramuscular fatty infiltration on T1-weighted MR images for 93 shoulders with either supraspinatus partial-thickness tear > 50% tendon thickness or full-thickness tear by Goutallier grade, fuzzy C-means and an orthopaedic surgeon visible percentage estimate, by two observers for each method. Descriptive statistics were performed to compare groups. Inter- and intra-observer reliability was determined. Correlative analysis among the three methods was performed. Results Significant differences of mean supraspinatus intramuscular fatty infiltration were present when comparing supraspinatus high-grade partial-thickness tear versus full-thickness tears by Goutallier grade ( p = 0.004), fuzzy C-means ( p = 0.002) and orthopaedic surgeon visible percentage estimate ( p = 0.001). There was no significant difference for age (55.0 ± 11.1 years versus 56.1 ± 9.6 years) or sex (35.4% male versus 47.8% male) for supraspinatus high-grade partial-thickness tear and full-thickness tear, respectively. A significant difference existed among the subgroup of full-thickness tears stratified by tear size by all three methods ( p < 0.020). Inter- and intra-observer reliability was Goutallier grade 0.590 and 0.624, fuzzy C-means 0.768 and 0.925 and orthopaedic surgeon visible percentage estimate 0.858 and 0.686, respectively. For shoulders with mean Goutallier grade ≥ 2.0, inter-observer reliability was 0.878 and 0.802 for fuzzy C-means and orthopaedic surgeon visible percentage estimate, respectively. A strong correlation was present among the three methods of supraspinatus FI analysis (rho ≥ 0.72). Conclusion Supraspinatus full-thickness tears have higher amounts of intramuscular fatty infiltration compared to high-grade partial-thickness tear. Quantitative fuzzy C-means shows excellent inter-observer reliability for estimating supraspinatus intramuscular fat. Experienced orthopaedic surgeons’ semi-quantitative estimation of supraspinatus visible intramuscular fat may offer improved reliability as compared to semi-quantitative Goutallier grade.