Table 1 Description of the studies included in this review.

Trial	Type of study	Outcome measure	Sample size	Characteristics of treatment	Shoulder dominance	Follow‐up period	Confirmation of tear
Ainsworth (2006)24	Case series	OSS	10	Patient education, exercises	Not reported	3 months	Massive full thickness tear confirmed by ultrasonography
		SF36
Bokor et al (1993)25	Case series	ASES	53	NSAIDs, stretching, strengthening, occasional CS injections	Dominant limb involved in 40 cases	Mean 7.6 years	Full thickness tear confirmed arthroscopically
		UCLA SRS
Goldberg et al (2001)26	Case series	SST	46	Patient education, home stretching and strengthening	Numbers not stated (dominance used in analysis)	Minimum 1 year	Full thickness tear confirmed by ultrasonography, MRI or arthrogram
		SF36				Mean 2.5 years (SD = 1.6)
Hawkins and Dunlop (1995)27	Case series	C‐M	33	Supervised rotator cuff exercises	26 dominant, 7 non‐dominant	3.8 years (range 2.6‐4.6 years)	Full thickness tear confirmed by contrast arthrogram
		ASES
Heers et al (2005)28	Case series	C‐M	10	Home exercises	Not reported	3 months	3 groups, one group had 10 patients with massive tear confirmed by ultrasonography
		Night pain
		ROM
Itoi and Tabata (1992)29	Case series	MWC	114 (124 shoulders)	Rest, NSAIDs, injection, exercise for range of movement and strength	Not reported	3.4 years (range 1‐9 years)	Full thickness tears confirmed by arthrogram
Koubaa et al (2005)30	Case series	C‐M	24	Ultrasound, passive ROM, strengthening, proprioception, education	15 dominant	6 months	Full thickness tear confirmed by ultrasonography
		VAS (pain)			9 non‐dominant
		VAS (impairment)
Palmer (1998)31	Single case study	TRP	1	Exercise in water	Not reported	2 years	Full thickness tear confirmed by MRI
		ROM
		Power
Piccoli and Hasson (2004)32	Single case study	SPADI	1	Exercise, ultrasound, ice, upper body exerciser	Not reported	7 weeks	Full thickness tear confirmed by MRI
		SF12
Yamada et al (2000)33	Case series	JOAS	12	CS, heat, exercise, passive movement	Not reported	4 years	Massive cuff tear confirmed by arthrogram

OSS, Oxford Shoulder Score; SF36, Short Form‐36; ASES, American Shoulder and elbow Surgeons; UCLA SRS, University of California at Los Angeles Shoulder Rating Score; SST, Simple Shoulder Test; C‐M, Constant–Murley; MWC, Modified Wolfgang's Criteria; TRP, Therapy Report Programme; ROM, range of movement; SPADI, Shoulder Pain and Disability Index; SF12, Short Form‐12; JOAS, Japanese Orthopaedic Association Score; CS, corticosteroid.