Preliminary Clinical Observation Of Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound In Treatment Of Chronic Injury Of Soft Tissue

Background and Objective As a common disease, the etiological factors of chronic injury of soft tissue are still undefined. Nowadays, accompanied with the development of information technology and the emerge of some new types of work, the incidence of chronic injury of soft tissue is increasing. Therapeutic ultrasound applied as a management of patient with chronic injury of soft tissue has a history of about 60 years. The therapeutic mechanism is widely accepted. But for a long time, the clinical outcomes doesn't appear as we expected. Although the clinical results in management of tennis elbow is effective according to some researchers, it seems ineffective in treatment of other types of chronic injury of soft tissue ,such as adhesive capsulitis of shoulder, strain of lumbar muscles et.al. Low-intensity focused ultrasound as a new type of therapeutic ultrasound has improved the treatment of chronic injury of soft tissue and the efficacy of low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) in the treatment of chronic injury of soft tissue was investigated in this study.Methods According to the severity and type of chronic injury of soft tissue, ninety-five patients were allocated to treatment group(66 patients) and control group( 29 patients). The treatment group was treated with LIFU, and the control group was treated by sham LIFU. Before the treatment, after five days therapy and at the end of 21 days follow-up, VAS(visual analogue scale, VAS)was recorded and analyzed. The adverse effects were observed during the period.Results Two patients quit from the treatment group. Four patients quit from the control group. Before the treatment, after five days therapy and at the end of 21 days follow-up, the VAS of treatment group patients were 5.23±1.21, 2.26±1.28 and 1.60±1.18. The VAS of control group patients were 5.01±1.50 before the therapy, 4.99±1.86 after the whole treatment, and the variety was of no significance(p>0.05). After the treatment phase, the decrease of VAS in the treatment group was significantly reduced compared with the control group (P<0.05);In the treatment group, there was no significant difference in variety of VAS among the different types of chronic injury of soft tissue(P>0.05). No obvious adverse effect was observed in either the treatment group or control group.Conclusions LIFU was applied to the treatment of common types of chronic injury of soft tissue and achieved a good therapeutic effect, moreover, it's a non-invasive and safe therapy.