Subacromial impingement syndrome and pain: protocol for a randomised controlled trial of exercise and corticosteroid injection (the SUPPORT trial)

Edward Roddy, Irena Zwierska, Elaine M Hay, Sue Jowett, Martyn Lewis, Kay Stevenson, Danielle van der Windt, Nadine E Foster, the SUPPORT trial team

Subacromial impingement syndrome is the most frequent cause of shoulder problems which themselves affect 1 in 3 adults. Management commonly includes exercise and corticosteroid injection. However, the few existing trials of exercise or corticosteroid injection for subacromial impingement syndrome are mostly small, of poor quality, and focus only on short-term results. Exercise packages tend to be standardised rather than individualised and progressed. There has been much recent interest in improving outcome from corticosteroid injections by using musculoskeletal ultrasound to guide injections. However, there are no high-quality trials comparing ultrasound-guided and blind corticosteroid injection in subacromial impingement syndrome. This trial will investigate how to optimise the outcome of subacromial impingement syndrome from exercise (standardised advice and information leaflet versus physiotherapist-led exercise) and from subacromial corticosteroid injection (blind versus ultrasound-guided), and provide long-term follow-up data on clinical and cost-effectiveness.