Comparing the effectiveness of prolotherapy and percutaneous dry needling in the treatment of lateral epicondylitis: a retrospective cohort study

Abstract

- OBJECTIVE: Lateral epicondyli-tis (LE) can result in a functional loss in patients because of pain and has recently become more prevalent. This study compared the effects of minimally invasive prolotherapy (PRO) and per -cutaneous dry needling (PDN) on LE treatment. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients were di-vided into three groups; Group 1 included pa-tients undergoing PDN, Group 2 included those undergoing PRO, and Group 3 included those undergoing PDN+PRO. All these treatments were administered three times and at a 3-week interval in each patient. Data on the visual ana-log scale (VAS) and patient-rated tennis elbow evaluation (PRTEE) scale scores of the patients were collected at weeks 0, 3, and 6 and month 6 and retrospectively analyzed.RESULTS: The VAS and PRTEE scores de-creased in all groups. The decrease in Group 3 was higher than that in the other groups (p<0.001). Upon evaluating within-group differences in VAS and PRTEE scores, the scores at week 3, week 6, and month 6 gradually decreased compared with the baseline in all groups (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: PDN and PRO are minimally invasive and can successfully treat LE. A combi-nation of PDN+PRO provides better results than PDN or PRO alone. As the materials we used in these treatments are relatively inexpensive and readily available, we believe our study will help reduce the national healthcare costs allocated for the treatment of LE.