To The Editor: I read with great interest the article, “Electrohydraulic High-Energy Shock-Wave Treatment for Chronic Plantar Fasciitis” by Ogden et al. (2004;86:2216-28). I congratulate them for reporting the results of the FDA trial, which, to a vast extent, had been published earlier6,7. Some points remain open for discussion. 1. The alleged efficacy of this singledose, high-energy, anesthetically based treatment has already been discussed exhaustively by Buchbinder et al.3 in 2002. Regarding the HealthTronics-sponsored FDA trial2, Buchbinder et al. made the criticism that the presence of plantar fasciitis was determined solely on clinical grounds. Also, it was uncertain whether the two groups in the trial were comparable at baseline. In their previous paper, Ogden et al.6 defined overall success of treatment at twelve weeks as fulfillment of four of the following criteria: (1) a minimum 50% improvement over baseline in the investigator's assessment of pain (with a dolorimeter) and a score of £4 cm on a visual analogue scale; (2) a minimum 50% improvement over baseline in the subject's self-assessment of pain on first walking in the morning and a score of £4 cm on a visual analogue scale; (3) a minimum 1-point or greater improvement on a 5-point scale of distance walked without heel pain, or maintenance of a baseline assessment of no pain or minimal pain; and (4) no prescription of analgesics for pain in the treated heel between ten and twelve weeks after treatment. While success according to the three criteria other than the investigator's assessment of pain favored the active treatment, no difference was significant (subject's selfassessment of pain: 59.7% in the shock-wave group compared with 48.2% in the placebo group, p = 0.08; subject's self-assessment of activity level: 71.4% in the shock-wave group compared with 67.2% in … Corresponding author: John A. Ogden, MD Skeletal Educational Association 3435 Habersham Road N.W. Atlanta, GA 30305 orthozap{at}aol.com