Ultrasound Guided Shoulder Anterior Capsular Infiltration Plus Hydrodilatation With Steroid Versus Hyalase in Patients With Frozen Shoulder

Frozen shoulder (FS) is a self-limiting pathology of the shoulder joint causing restriction in both the active and passive range of movements associated with pain (Konarski et al., 2020).

A frozen shoulder is a common condition causing severe pain and a reduced range of motion in the shoulder. It can result in detrimental effects on quality of life and the ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). It affects 2% to 5% of the global population and is more common in diabetic patients. There are a variety of treatment options available for patients with frozen shoulders as part of the management ladder of interventions. FS may persist for more than three years or may never resolve (Sam et al., 2023).

Conservative management includes physiotherapy, NSAIDs, Hydrodilatation (HD), intra-articular steroids, manipulation under anesthesia, and arthroscopic, or open capsular release. Distension of the shoulder capsule with normal saline and steroid infusion has been suggested to benefit by changing the biochemical properties of the capsule in FS (Cho et al., 2019).

Hydrodilatation of the shoulder joint capsule was a novel treatment to alleviate the pain of the affected shoulder. The procedure may be given with or without an adjuvant corticosteroid. Hydrodilatation, using saline and a corticosteroid, was superior in short-term pain reduction and range of motion improvement compared to management using only physiotherapy and corticosteroid injection in patients treated for frozen shoulder (Prasetia et al., 2022).

The proposed hypothesis regarding the mechanism of action in hydrodilatation and pain reduction in patients with frozen shoulder was associated with synovitis and fibrosis removal. Previous studies also noted better pain reduction in patients receiving hydrodilatation with adjuvant corticosteroid than only corticosteroid injection (Albana et al., 2022).