Traumatic full-thickness infraspinatus and teres minor tendon tears

The patient was a 23-year-old male professional American football player who played wide receiver. He injured his right shoulder 3 days earlier during practice, diving to catch a pass and landing on his right arm while it was outstretched overhead. When he landed on the ground, the patient reported that he felt his right shoulder dislocate. Based on the patient's mechanism of injury and the findings of a physical examination by an orthopaedic surgeon and a physical therapist, radiographs and magnetic resonance imaging were ordered. Though the radiographs were interpreted as normal, magnetic resonance imaging revealed full-thickness infraspinatus and teres minor tendon tears at their insertion sites on the humerus.