Ultrasound and MRI conflicting findings

[TennisCanada1]

Curious for anyone's thoughts here.

Back in March I hit a serve and I felt something sharp in my elbow. I felt pain when hitting serves/forehands/slices (whenever my elbow was straight) and stopped after 20 minutes.
I gave it a week but thinking it was probably a tendinitis, I ended up playing through it from March-September. Throughout that time I felt 100% fine on groundstrokes, but the moment I hit a serve I felt
pain. It usually hurt for the first 5-10 serves and then the pain diminished a little but would still be there while I served over the course of a match. To give it rest I finally stopped serving in mid September and stopped hitting groundstrokes a month ago.

Ultrasound said: “There appears to be a complete tear involving the anterior bundle of the UCL measuring 3 (long axis mm)
MRI said: "On the ulnar side, the ulnar collateral ligament is normal as is the common flexor tendon. “” No common flexor tear or other elbow injury demonstrated."

Very confused as to what to believe. My understanding is the MRI is more accurate in general and with ligaments, but who knows if the ultrasound technician or radiologist misinterpreted on their ends.

 

[Pass750]

Given the pain you are feeling, something is obviously wrong and corroborated by ultrasound. What does your doctor say?

hope you heal soon!

 

[TennisCanada1]

Thank you. Haven't spoken with dr. yet as I just received MRI results but given how much more accurate an MRI is I'd be inclined to think that would be the more accurate diagnosis, no?

 

[LuckyR]

Curious for anyone's thoughts here.

Back in March I hit a serve and I felt something sharp in my elbow. I felt pain when hitting serves/forehands/slices (whenever my elbow was straight) and stopped after 20 minutes.
I gave it a week but thinking it was probably a tendinitis, I ended up playing through it from March-September. Throughout that time I felt 100% fine on groundstrokes, but the moment I hit a serve I felt
pain. It usually hurt for the first 5-10 serves and then the pain diminished a little but would still be there while I served over the course of a match. To give it rest I finally stopped serving in mid September and stopped hitting groundstrokes a month ago.

Ultrasound said: “There appears to be a complete tear involving the anterior bundle of the UCL measuring 3 (long axis mm)
MRI said: "On the ulnar side, the ulnar collateral ligament is normal as is the common flexor tendon. “” No common flexor tear or other elbow injury demonstrated."

Very confused as to what to believe. My understanding is the MRI is more accurate in general and with ligaments, but who knows if the ultrasound technician or radiologist misinterpreted on their ends.

Ultrasound is good at looking at the interface between solid and liquid. Thus in the elbow it would be helpful to look at the joint space. MRI can look at different soft tissues that are next to one another, such as ligaments that are next to tendons and muscles, which is not what ultrasound is designed to do.

 

[socallefty]

It seems like MRI is a better imaging technique for diagnosing these kinds of injuries. If you have a good doctor, trust his opinion more than anyone on here who hasn’t seen your diagnostic charts.

 

[Hagberg]

I have elbow pain with similar symptoms. Hurts mainly on serve but sometimes on other movements. The pain location would normally indicate golfers elbow. Sometimes better, sometimes worse...

After a year of troubleshooting, it looks like some nerve squeeze problem emanating from the back/shoulder down into the arm.
I have a good physio-therapist who can fix it for a while with some brutal attention to shoulders, back and pectoralis minor so the cause indeed seems to be located away from the spot where it hurts.

 

[jindra]

If you have an MRI forget about the ultrasound.

In general, an ultrasound done by a random radiologist is worthless.

 

[jimmy8]

i thought ultrasounds are for pregnancies. I got my medical degree from Web MD's website. I think you should go to a orthopedic surgeon and trust their hundreds of thousands of hours of training instead of mine. maybe you need a ct scan.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

MRI is much more sensitive at soft-tissue imaging than US.