• Yen Chou, Hong-Jen Chiou, Hsin-Kai Wang, and Yi-Chen Lai.
• Department of Radiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
• J Chin Med Assoc. 2020 Sep 1; 83 (9): 876-879.

BackgroundDue to the lack of an evidence-based consensus, managing refractory myofascial pain syndrome is challenging for clinicians. Dextrose injection (dextrose prolotherapy) emerged as a promising, cost-effective treatment. This study evaluated the efficacy of targeted ultrasound-guided dextrose injection for localized myofascial pain syndrome.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the clinical outcomes of 45 patients with myofascial pain syndrome refractory to alternative treatments with targeted ultrasound-guided dextrose injection. Pretreatment symptom severity and symptomatic response 1 month after treatment were statistically analyzed using a visual analog scale (VAS)-based scoring system.ResultsOf 45 patients, 8 (24.4%) reported complete resolution of symptoms at the treated site. In total, 36 (80.0%) patients reported greater than 50% improvement in their symptoms. The mean pretreatment and posttreatment VAS scores were 7.0 and 2.44 (p < 0.001), indicating an overall 65.0% reduction in symptom severity.ConclusionTargeted ultrasound-guided dextrose injection was remarkably effective for refractory localized myofascial pain syndrome, significantly reducing symptom intensities in the majority of treated patients within 1 month after a single injection.

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