Effects of Ultrasound-guide Hypertonic Dextrose Injection for Chronic Subacromial Bursitis

Subacromial bursitis is one of the major causes of chronic refractory shoulder pain. It can cause patients with shoulder pain when shoulder exercise and heavy lifting and limiting the range of motion. It can also influence the sleep quality due to pain symptoms of the shoulder. Usually, these patients had limited response to medication and physical modality. Steroid injection was often adopted for intervention, but the adverse effects should be considered. Therefore, prolotherapy was taken as an alternative treatment for chronic subacromial bursitis. It involves the injection of small volumes of an irritant agent, most commonly a hyperosmolar dextrose solution, at the lesion site. Hyperosmolar dextrose appears to be the most commonly used agent today. The aim of this study is to investigate hypertonic injections in subacromial bursitis patients about clinical and ultrasound image presentation. The investigators conducted a double-blinded randomized controlled trial for 60 participants with chronic shoulder pain for 3 months with subacromial bursitis. In the study group, the echo guide 20% dextrose water was injected into the lesion site, and the control group received the echo guide steroid injection. ROM, SPADI, VAS, x-ray, and ultrasound data were obtained at baseline. At weeks 2, 6, 12, ROM, SPADI, VAS, and ultrasound data were evaluated. The ANOVA and independent t-test are applied for analysis by SPSS 20.0 with a P value less than 0.05 as statistical significance.