Steroid injections are helpful in rotator cuff tendinopathy

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7328.51

BMJ 2002;324:51 ( 5 January )

Letters

Steroid injections are helpful in rotator cuff tendinopathy

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Speed discussed corticosteroid injections in tendon lesions.¹ We agree that there is a lack of good randomised trialsin this field, but we disagree with his conclusion that in rotatorcuff tendinopathy, range of movement but not pain is improvedby steroidinjection.

Speed comments that analysis of the pooled data in two prospective randomised trials showed an improvement in abduction butnot pain after steroid injections. It is not clear if this iscompared with anti-inflammatory treatment or placebo. When examinedindividually, however, these papers concluded that triamcinolonesignificantly improved pain at four weeks compared with placeboand showed non-significant benefits compared with naproxen ordiclofenac. ² ³

Furthermore, in our experience, steroid injections provide pain relief sufficient to obviate surgical treatment in a proportionof patients with tendinopathy without rotator cuff tears. Thisis supported by a prospective randomised controlled double blindclinical study from the Hospital for . . . [Full text of this article]