ABSTRACT
Objective Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is a common muscle function disturbance.This study was to investigate the clinical value of acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging in assessing the therapeutic effect of acupuncture for patients with trapezius MPS.Methods A total of 116 patients diagnosed with trapezius MPS received acupuncture therapy once a day for 10 days in Pudong Hospital from August 2015 to June 2016.Using ARFI imaging, we recorded the shear wave velocity (SWV) of the trapezius and obtained the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) scores of the patients before, at the end of, and at 7, 15 and 30 days after treatment.Then, we analyzed the interaction and correlation between the SWV values and SF-MPQ scores of the patients at different time points.Results Both the SF-MPQ scores and SWV values were first decreased, falling to lowest values (5.19 points and 1.43 m/s) at 7 days after treatment, and then increased again.The interaction between the SF-MPQ scores and SWV values were significantly different at different time points (Finteraction=2.553, Pinteraction=0.038), and there was a strong linear correlation between the two indexes (r=0.755, P=0.000).Conclusion ARFI imaging combined with SF-MPQ has a certain clinical value in assessing the effect of acupuncture on trapezius MPS.