• Nikolaos Malliaropoulos, Dawn Thompson, Maria Meke, Debasish Pyne, Dimosthenis Alaseirlis, Henry Atkinson, Vasileios Korakakis, and Heinz Lohrer.
• Sports and Exercise Medicine Clinic, Asklipiou 17, 54639, Thessaloniki, Greece.
• Bmc Musculoskel Dis. 2017 Dec 6; 18 (1): 513.

BackgroundA retrospective single centre cohort analysis was performed to evaluate an individualised radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy (rESWT) protocol for treatment of symptomatic calcific shoulder tendinopathy.Methods67 patients (79 Shoulders) were identified with 76 shoulders included for analysis. rESWT treatment protocol was adapted according to individual response to treatment. Variables included number of sessions, shockwave impulses, pressure and frequency. Success rate was estimated as the percentage of patients having ≥60% visual analogue score (VAS) pain decrease at follow-up. Recurrence at 1 year was recorded.ResultsUsing this individualised symptom guided protocol, patients underwent a mean of 7 ± 1.5 rESWT sessions, with mean pressure of 1.7 ± 0.2 bar, mean frequency of 5 ± 0.3 Hz and 2175 ± 266 impulses. The mean pre-treatment VAS score of 6.7 ± 1.1 was significantly decreased to 3.2 ± 0.8 immediately post-treatment, 2.6 ± 0.9 at 1 month, 1.7 ± 1.0 at 3 months and 0.8 ± 1.0 at 1 year follow up (α = 0.05). One-year success rate was estimated at 92% and 1-year recurrence rate was 7%.ConclusionsWe conclude that in this retrospective study an individualised rESWT protocol resulted in a high success rate with low number of recurrences. Randomised controlled trials to support these findings are recommended.

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