Surgery for shoulder impingement

When you raise your arm, the top of your humerus, where the rotator cuff tendons attach, “impinge” against your acromion. When this hurts, it is called impingement syndrome. “Decompressing” the joint by taking some bone off the acromion (an "acromioplasty”) makes sense, and seems to work well. The operation has been around for a long time, and there have been many studies looking at different ways of doing this operation, but very few studies looking at whether or not it works better than not operating. Interestingly, all of the studies that have been done conclude that this operation adds nothing.

Book/Web review: Testing Treatments

Title: Testing Treatments 2^nd Ed, 2011

Authors: Imogen Evans, Hazel Thornton, Iain Chalmers, Paul Glasziou

Publisher: Pinter and Martin, London

Website: testingtreatments.org

Testing Treatments is a book, and Testing Treatments Interactive (http://www.testingtreatments.org/) is a website that contains the book, with live links and added information. It is a valuable reference tool for the layperson and also useful for health practitioners who are not well versed in evidence-based medicine. The book tells you why it is important to test treatments, how this type of testing should be done, and how to make research better and more useful to future patients.