Lateral/External Rotation Lag Sign | Supraspinatus+Infraspinatus

Execution:

  1. The patient’s affected shoulder is brought into 90° of flexion, 90° of horizontal abduction and full external rotation
  2. Position is stabilized by the examiner
  3. The patient is asked to hold this position actively while the examiner lets go of the support

 

Positive Outcome: Patient is unable to hold this position and the forearm and hand fall forwards

Study Reliability Sn Sp LR+ LR-
Miller et al. (2009) NA 46 94 7.2 0.57
Collins et al. (2015)
>40° lag
NA 100 92 12.5 0
van Kampen et al. (2014) NA 98.4 83.3 8.2 0.88
Comment: This test is useful to confirm/rule in the diagnosis of a full thickness tear, but not good at ruling out full-thickness tears.