Ultrasound-Guided Percutaneous Irrigation of Rotator Cuff Calcific Tendinopathy (US-PICT): Patient Experience

Purpose: To assess patients' experience of ultrasound-guided percutaneous irrigation of rotator cuff calcific tendinopathy (US-PICT).

Methods: Ninety-one patients (58 females; mean age: 50.5 ± 8.3 years) treated by US-PICT (local anesthesia, single-needle lavage, and intrabursal steroid injection) answered to a list of questions regarding their experience of the procedure before treatment, immediately after treatment, and three months later. The Borg CR10 scale was used to evaluate perceived pain, discomfort during anesthetic injection, and anxiety. The Wilcoxon, Spearman's rho, linear regression, and chi-square statistics were used.

Results: 81/91 patients complained mild discomfort during the injection of anesthetics (2, 1-2). Pain scores during US-PICT were very low (0, 0-1), with 70% patients having not experienced pain. After treatment, we found a significant reduction of pain (before: 8, 7-8; 3-month: 3, 1-6; p < .001) and anxiety (before: 5, 2-7; during treatment: 2, 1-7; p = 0.010), with high overall satisfaction (immediately after: 10, 9-10; 3-month: 9, 7-10) and confidence in the possibility of recovery (immediately after: 9, 8-10; 3-month: 10, 8-10), respectively. Treatments performed before US-PICT were not statistically associated with pain relief (p = 0.389) and clinical improvement (p = 0.937). We found a correlation between satisfaction immediately postprocedure and confidence in the possibility of recovery (p = 0.002) and between satisfaction three months after treatment and clinical improvement (p < 0.001) and patients' reminds about the description of the procedure (p = 0.005) and of the potential complications (p = 0.035).

Conclusions: US-PICT is a mildly painful, comfortable, and well-tolerated procedure, regardless of any previous treatments. Patients' satisfaction is correlated with clinical benefit and full explanation of the procedure and its complications.