“A PROSPECTIVE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LOCAL STEROID INJECTION VS DRY NEEDLING FOR PLANTAR FASCIITIS”

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common conditions of heel pain among adults. Most common affected age group being 40-60 years and it is a leading cause of occupational impairment. Non-invasive and invasive modalities are the two basic types of treatment. Invasive treatment modalilities like local injections, surgical treatment are advised for patients non-responding to non-invasive conservative treatment modalities. Local Steroid Injection (LSI) is the most common invasive treatment used whereas Dry Needling (DN) is proposed as a new modality of treatment recently. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Dry Needling versus Local Steroid Injection for Plantar Fasciitis using short form of Foot Function Index Revised (FFI-R). METHODS:This is prospective randomized, single blind, controlled study. Fifty patients who were clinically and radiologically (USG) conrmed to have idiopathic plantar fasciitis were enrolled in the study after informed consent. Patients were randomized and assigned into 2 groups of 25 patients each. Group I was managed by Local Steroid Injection (LSI) and Group II was managed by Dry Needling (DN). Patients were followed every 4 weeks up to 12 weeks. They were assessed clinically and functionally based on short form of FFI-R CONCLUSION: Short form of Foot Function Index Revised (FFI-R) is a quick, reliable and patient friendly outcome measurement tool for plantar fasciitis. Both Local Corticosteroid Injection and Dry Needling are effective treatment in refractory cases of Plantar Fasciitis in adjunct to non-invasive conservative treatment modalities. Dry Needling is a safe and reliable procedure for treating refractory cases of Plantar Fasciitis. Even though corticosteroid injection is the most effective treatment for short term symptomatic relief (at 4 weeks), it is found that outcomes of Dry Needling are comparable with the efcacy of corticosteroid injection in the medium term follow-up (12 weeks). Dry Needling has greater physiological compatibility than corticosteroid injection in terms of ability to induce possible healing process in plantar fasciitis and devoid of any long term complication associated with corticosteroid injection.