Research progress in extracorporeal shock wave therapy for rotator cuff injury / 中华创伤杂志

ABSTRACT

Rotator cuff injury often leads to shoulder pain and dysfunction. For the injured rotator cuff tendon without continuous interruption, conservative treatment is often used. However, the shoulder is used frequent in daily life, which makes that the rotator cuff injury generally shows gradual aggravation and eventually progresses to complete tear due to poor blood supply of the rotator cuff tendon tissue and weak repair ability. In order to reverse the pathophysiological changes after rotator cuff injury and promote the repair of injured rotator cuff tendon, a series of conservative treatments for rotator cuff injury have been explored. Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) is one of the representative treatments, but its molecular biological mechanism in promoting rotator cuff repair is still unclear. Therefore, the authors review the progress of ESWT for rotator cuff injury from aspects of the molecular biological mechanism and clinical application status, so as to provide a reference for future researches and clinical application of ESWT.