Management of Shoulder Pain in Primary Care: A Review

Importance Shoulder pain is a common and disabling condition most often managed in primary care. This review provides an evidence-based update on the diagnosis and management of shoulder pain to support clinical decision-making and improve patient outcomes.

Observations Shoulder pain arises from benign, self-limiting soft-tissue disorders or rare but serious causes. In primary care, most cases are nontraumatic and involve periarticular soft tissues. The subacromial region is the most frequent source of pain, and the term subacromial pain is preferred over overlapping and inconsistently defined labels such as rotator cuff tendinopathy or tear, impingement syndrome, or subacromial bursitis. Less commonly, pain originates from the glenohumeral joint, as in glenohumeral osteoarthritis or adhesive capsulitis. Assessment should focus on a detailed history and physical examination to assess pain patterns and movement limitation and to exclude serious causes, such as infection, malignant neoplasm, or nonshoulder referred pain. Once these are excluded, first-line treatment is similar for most patients and aligns with recommended care for other regional musculoskeletal concerns: education about the favorable natural history, symptom relief and activity modification if needed, and watchful waiting. Early imaging is not indicated in the absence of significant trauma or suspicious features, such as fever, unexplained weight loss, or history of malignant neoplasm, as structural abnormalities often do not correlate with symptoms, rarely alter management, and may lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Specialist referral should be reserved for suspected serious pathology, such as infection, malignant neoplasm, fracture, or dislocation; significant functional or neurologic deficit; features suggestive of systemic inflammatory disease; or persistent or worsening pain and debility. High-certainty evidence indicates that subacromial pain does not benefit from surgical intervention.

Conclusions and Relevance Shoulder pain is the third most common musculoskeletal presentation in primary care. Although causes vary, the initial management is largely the same once serious conditions have been excluded. Most patients with subacromial pain will fully recover with minimal intervention and can be safely treated with supportive care. Imaging and referral to surgical subspecialists should be reserved for rare and carefully selected cases to avoid unnecessary intervention.

Author/s:

Romi Haas, Thomas Ibounig, MD, Buchbinder, Rachelle

Active Monitoring With or Without Endocrine Therapy for Low-Risk Ductal Carcinoma In Situ: The COMET Randomized Clinical Trial

Erin Blanchette — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:22:41 +0000

Date Added:

March 19, 2025

Journal/Publication:

JAMA

Publisher:

American Medical Association

Publication Date:

March 18, 2025

Issue:

Volume:

333

Pages:

972-980

URL:

Active Monitoring With or Without Endocrine Therapy for Low-Risk Ductal Carcinoma In Situ: The COMET Randomized Clinical Trial

Type:

Clinical Research Results

Format:

Article

DOI (1):

10.1001/jama.2024.26698

Keywords

breast neoplasms

Carcinoma

breast cancer

Ductal Carcinoma In Situ

PMID (1):

39665585

MeSH

Antineoplastic Agents

Hormonal / therapeutic use

Hormonal

Breast Neoplasms* / therapy

breast neoplasms

Carcinoma

Intraductal

Noninfiltrating* / therapy

Noninfiltrating

Intention to Treat Analysis

Like low grade prostate cancer, low-risk DCIS appears to be a fairly benign disease. The problem is that it is called cancer, so once it is discovered, the cat's out of the bag. James W. Mold, MD, MPH

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Importance Active monitoring for low-risk ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast has been proposed as an alternative to guideline-concordant care, but the safety of this approach is unknown.

Objective To compare rates of invasive cancer in patients with low-risk DCIS receiving active monitoring vs guideline-concordant care.

Design, Setting, and Participants Prospective, randomized noninferiority trial enrolling 995 women aged 40 years or older with a new diagnosis of hormone receptor–positive grade 1 or grade 2 DCIS without invasive cancer at 100 US Alliance Cancer Cooperative Group clinical trial sites from 2017 to 2023.

Interventions Participants were randomized to receive active monitoring (follow-up every 6 months with breast imaging and physical examination; n = 484) or guideline-concordant care (surgery with or without radiation therapy; n = 473).

Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was 2-year cumulative risk of ipsilateral invasive cancer diagnosis, according to planned intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses, with a noninferiority bound of 5%.

Results The median age of the 957 participants analyzed was 63.6 (95% CI, 55.5-70.5) years in the guideline-concordant care group and 63.7 (95% CI, 60.0-71.6) years in the active monitoring group. Overall, 15.7% of participants were Black and 75.0% were White. In this prespecified primary analysis, median follow-up was 36.9 months; 346 patients had surgery for DCIS, 264 in the guideline-concordant care group and 82 in the active monitoring group. Forty-six women were diagnosed with invasive cancer, 19 in the active monitoring group and 27 in the guideline-concordant care group. The 2-year Kaplan-Meier cumulative rate of ipsilateral invasive cancer was 4.2% in the active monitoring group vs 5.9% in the guideline-concordant care group, a difference of −1.7% (upper limit of the 95% CI, 0.95%), indicating that active monitoring is not inferior to guideline-concordant care. Invasive tumor characteristics did not differ significantly between groups.

Conclusions and Relevance Women with low-risk DCIS randomized to active monitoring did not have a higher rate of invasive cancer in the same breast at 2 years compared with those randomized to guideline-concordant care.

Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02926911

Author/s:

E. Shelley Hwang, Terry Hyslop, Thomas Lynch, et al.