Relief for Plantar Fasciitis Patients

According to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the combination of a steroid injection with an ultrasound-guided technique can prove to an effective option by as much as 95 percent when it comes to providing relief to patients suffering from plantar fasciitis.

Study's lead author, Luca M. Sconfienza, M.D., from Italy's University of Genoa, remarked that this technique is expected to stand up as an innovative, effective, and one-time outpatient procedure.

Plantar fasciitis, which affects one million people annually in the U.S. alone, is the most common cause of heel pain and is an inflammation of the plantar fascia, a connective tissue.

From News-Medical.Net:

For this study, Dr. Sconfienza and colleagues used a new ultrasound-guided technique, along with steroid injection, on 44 patients with plantar fasciitis that was unresponsive to conservative treatments.

After injection of a small amount of anesthesia, the anesthetic needle is used to repeatedly puncture the site where the patient feels the pain. This technique is known as dry-needling. Dry-needling creates a small amount of local bleeding that helps to heal the fasciitis. Lastly, a steroid is injected around the fascia to eliminate the inflammation and pain. The technique is performed with ultrasound guidance to improve accuracy and to avoid injecting the steroids directly into the plantar fascia, which could result in rupture.

After the 15-minute procedure, symptoms disappeared for 42 of the study's 44 patients (95 percent) within three weeks.

Dr. Sconfienza said that dry-needling with steroid injection proves to be an effective option when pain associated with plantar fasciitis becomes annoying.