Effective Treatment for Shoulder Pain

Staff members at a hospital in Spain found needle lavages so effective in treating their own shoulder pain, they offered the treatment to patients.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Roentgenology, found treating calcium deposits in shoulder tendons with sonographically guided percutaneous needle lavage — needle injections of lydocaine or saline — had considerably improved 91 percent of the cases one year after treatment. Calcifications resolved completely or nearly completely in 89 percent of the patients, the study said.

The results showed us that aspiration and lavage is a very efficacious technique in the treatment of calcific tendinitis. Calcific tendinitis is common and is highly disabling, study lead author Dr. Jose Luis del Cura, of Hopital de Basurto, in Bilbao, Spain, said in a statement.

It has a significant social impact since it usually involves middle-age labor-active people and costs thousands of dollars in working hours lost. The alternatives to percutaneous treatment are surgery and shockwave therapy, where the latter requires dedicated equipment.

Percutaneous treatment is a simple, efficacious and inexpensive way to solve the problem which can be performed in any health faculty, requiring only a state-of-the-art ultrasound, the researchers said.