The effect of additional therapeutic ultrasound in patients with primary hip osteoarthritis: a randomized placebo-controlled study. [LINK]
Clin Rheumatol. 2010 May 26.
To the best of our knowledge, there is no study in the English literature about the usefulness of ultrasound therapy in degenerative hip osteoarthritis. The aim of this study was to examine its short- and long-term efficacy in patients with primary hip osteoarthritis with regard to pain, functional status, and quality of life (QoL). Forty-five patients with primary hip osteoarthritis were enrolled into the study. Demographic and clinical characteristics including age, sex, duration of disease, and pain on activity and at rest using visual analogue scale (VAS) were recorded. Functional status was determined by a 15-m timed walking test and Western Ontario McMaster Osteoarthritis Questionnaire. QoL was determined by the Short Form-36 survey (SF-36). Each patient was randomly assigned to either group I (standard physical therapy including hot pack and exercise program), group II (sham ultrasound in addition to standard physical therapy), or group III (ultrasound and standard physical therapy). The main outcome measures of the treatment were pain intensity by VAS; functional status measurements that were evaluated at baseline, at the end of the therapies, and at the first and third month of follow-up; and QoL scores that were determined at baseline and at the end of the first and third months. Twelve male and 33 female patients (mean age, 65.3 +/- 6.7 years; mean disease duration, 2.5 +/- 1.7 years) were included in the study. There were no differences between the groups regarding demographic variables on entry to the study. There were 15 patients in each group. Pain and functional outcome measures were determined to have improved significantly in all of the groups at the end of the therapies, but these improvements continued at the end of the first and third months only in group III (p < 0.001) The physical subscores of SF-36 were improved at the end of the first month and were maintained at the end of the third month only in patients receiving additional ultrasound therapy (group III, p < 0.001), while mental subscores of SF-36 did not change significantly in any group. In conclusion, addition of therapeutic ultrasound to the traditional physical therapy showed a longitudinal positive effect on pain, functional status, and physical QoL in patients with hip osteoarthritis. The use of therapeutic ultrasound in the treatment of hip osteoarthritis should be encouraged, and it seems worthy to continue with large clinical trials on ultrasound in order to standardize the treatment modality in this patient group.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2010 Jan 20;(1):CD003132
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of joint disease and the leading cause of pain and physical disability in the elderly. Therapeutic ultrasound is one of several physical therapy modalities suggested for the management of pain and loss of function due to osteoarthritis (OA).
To compare therapeutic ultrasound with sham or no specific intervention in terms of effects on pain and function safety outcomes in patients with knee or hip OA.
Studies were included if they were randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials that compared therapeutic ultrasound with a sham intervention or no intervention in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee or hip.
MAIN RESULTS: Compared to the previous version of the review, four additional trials were identified resulting in the inclusion of five small sized trials in a total of 341 patients with knee OA. No trial included patients with hip OA. Two evaluated pulsed ultrasound, two continuous and one evaluated both pulsed and continuous ultrasound as the active treatment. The methodological quality and the quality of reporting was poor and a high degree of heterogeneity among the trials was revealed for function (88%). For pain, there was an effect in favour of ultrasound therapy, which corresponded to a difference in pain scores between ultrasound and control of -1.2 cm on a 10-cm VAS (95% CI -1.9 to -0.6 cm). For function, we found a trend in favour of ultrasound, which corresponded to a difference in function scores of -1.3 units on a standardised WOMAC disability scale ranging from 0 to 10 (95% CI -3.0 to 0.3). Safety was evaluated in two trials including up to 136 patients; no adverse event, serious adverse event or withdrawals due to adverse events occurred in either trial.
AUTHORS’ CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to the previous version of this review, our results suggest that therapeutic ultrasound may be beneficial for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Because of the low quality of the evidence, we are uncertain about the magnitude of the effects on pain relief and function, however. Therapeutic ultrasound is widely used for its potential benefits on both knee pain and function, which may be clinically relevant. Appropriately designed trials of adequate power are therefore warranted.
