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Comparison of dry needling and steroid injection in the treatment of plantar fasciitis: a single-blind randomized clinical trial

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Abstract

Introduction

Plantar fasciitis is a common cause of heel pain. Considering different interventions which are applied for patients with plantar fasciitis, dry needling is proposed as a new modality of treatment recently. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of dry needling versus steroid injection for plantar fasciitis.

Methods

Sixty-six patients were recruited to this single-blind clinical trial study. Participants were randomly allocated to receive 1 ml (40 mg) of Depo-Medrol (methylprednisolone acetate) or dry needling. They were followed up for 12 months and monitored for total perception of pain using the visual analogue scale (VAS), with data obtained in baseline and at three weeks, six weeks, three months, six months and one year after treatment.

Results

Mean VAS score before treatment was 6.96 ± 0.87 for the steroid group and 6.41 ± 0.83 for the dry-needling group (P value = 0.54). Steroid injection reduced VAS scores rapidly until three weeks after treatment compared with dry needling (0.32 ± 0.71 and 3.47 ± 1.32, respectively; P value < 0.001). However, patients who were underwent dry needling reported lower VAS scores at the end of follow-up compared with the steroid group (0.69 ± 0.93 and 2.09 ± 1.58, respectively; P value = 0.004). Over the long term, 82.3% and 17.6% of changes in pain were contributed to time since treatment and treatment method, respectively (P values < 0.001).

Conclusions

Steroid injection can palliate plantar heel pain rapidly but dry needling can provide more satisfactory results for patients with plantar fasciitis in the long term.

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Abbreviations

FHSQ:

Foot Health Status Questionnaire

MSN:

Miniscalpelneedle

MTrP:

Myofascial trigger points

VAS:

Visual analogue scale

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported financially by Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. We thank all participants of this research.

Funding

This work was supported by the Medical Research Council at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Babak Hoseinzadeh.

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Ethical approval

The protocol of this study was approved by the Ethics Committee and the review board of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. This study was performed only on human. This article does not contain any previous phases on human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. The manuscript has not been submitted to other journals. The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support our conclusions. We have not used any data, text or theories presented by others.

Conflict of Interest

The authors of this study have no conflict of interests.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included at the beginning of the study.

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Rastegar, S., Baradaran Mahdavi, S., Hoseinzadeh, B. et al. Comparison of dry needling and steroid injection in the treatment of plantar fasciitis: a single-blind randomized clinical trial. International Orthopaedics (SICOT) 42, 109–116 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-017-3681-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-017-3681-1

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