Intense Therapeutic Ultrasound - Treatment for Chronic Plantar Fascia Musculoskeletal Pain Reduction

Overview

Double-blinded feasibility study for the treatment of pain related to chronic plantar fasciitis. A total 37 patients (27 treated and 12 control/sham treated) received 2 treatments, 2 weeks apart on subcutaneous plantar fascia musculoskeletal tissue along with Standard of Care treatments as prescribed by the Principal Investigator. Patients were followed for up to 6 months after the first treatment receiving a physical exam at each follow-up visit (4, 8 and 12 weeks) and provided feedback via Patient/Subject Reported Outcome Measure surveys specific to the treated anatomy at each visit and via phone follow-up at 26 weeks after the first treatment.

Intense therapeutic ultrasound (ITU) is an established ultrasound based therapy in which sound waves are concentrated and focused into selected musculoskeletal tissue, to produce selective thermal coagulative changes over a small controlled area while leaving the surrounding tissue unaffected. These coagulative changes are known to begin the body's tissue response cascade and promote collagen generation in the targeted anatomy resulting in pain reduction. ITU has been used clinically for treating the subcutaneous musculoskeletal tissue below facial skin for the past decade and it has received CE Mark and FDA 510(k) clearance to market for non-surgical brow and submental tissue lifting. Over 3 Million patients worldwide have been treated using this technology. Clinical studies have shown that 85% of patients receiving this treatment on facial skin tissue showed an improvement in facial lifting with no significant pain, erythema, inflammation or scarring by creating the same coagulative changes to the connective tissue under the skin. Histologically, it has been shown that ITU induces the production of dermal collagen with thickening of the dermis and straightening of the elastic fibers in the reticular dermis. On-going research in laboratory studies has shown that ITU can improve healing of damaged Achilles tendon in a rabbit model. Preliminary results showed an increase in precursor markers for collagen regeneration (e.g. Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFa), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), Interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β), and Transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFβ1)) and subsequent increase in collagen formation in injured rabbit tendons treated with ITU compared to injured, untreated rabbit tendons.