Shockwave treatment is increasingly used for plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinopathy. To be effective it is believed that high pressure must be achieved in the tissues. We report on the first human cadaveric experiments to characterize pressure from radial shockwave therapy (rSWT) for plantar fasciitis.
The pressure from rSWT was measured in two cadaveric feet using a needle hydrophone. Maximal pressure and energy flux were calculated from the measurements.
The pressure persisted longer than supposed, for up to 400μs. The peak negative pressure was up to two Mega Pascal. The predicted energy in the tissue strongly depended on the time interval used in calculations.
The measured pressure may be sufficiently high to cause cavitation in the tissue, which is one of the proposed healing mechanisms associated with rSWT. The results suggest that the energy is imparted to the tissues for much longer than previously thought.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 June 2018.
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#21,768,159
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Outputs from Foot & Ankle Surgery (Elsevier Science)
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Outputs of similar age from Foot & Ankle Surgery (Elsevier Science)
#3
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