ABSTRACT
The term “lawn tennis arm” was coined by Morris (1) in 1882 to describe a condition causing lateral elbow pain in tennis players that is now called “tennis elbow.” However, both terms, lateral epicondylitis and tennis elbow, are misnomers. First, the condition is actually one of marked tendinosis; it is not an inflammatory condition, as the term epicondylitis implies. Inflammation and inflammatory cells are only present early in the course of the disease; therefore, researchers have come to prefer the term “tendinosis” (2,3). Histologically, Nirschl noted that the tissue was characterized by disorganized, immature collagen formation with in-growth of immature fibroblastic, vascular, and granulation tissues (3,4). Clinically, the characteristic tissue is noted to be gray and friable with varying degrees of tearing. This abnormal tissue is almost universally found in the tendinous origin of the extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) muscle, but the tendons of the extensor carpi radialis longus (ECRL) and extensor digitorum communis (EDC) may also be involved, albeit much less commonly (5,6).
