ROLE OF ULTRASOUND THERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF STRESS FRACTURES

Abstract

Repetitive stress of exercise when exceeds bone's ability to remodel itself, leads to stress fractures. Stress fractures are the leading cause of morbidity amongst recruits during training and account for the maximum number of lost manpower days during training. Basic treatment for stress fractures is rest from aggravating activities for 4 to 8 weeks. Ultrasound has been reported to speed up healing of stress fractures, though it has not yet definitively been proven effective in the treatment of stress fractures. A study has been carried out to find out the efficacy of Ultrasound therapy (UST) in the treatment of stress fractures. A total of 75 cases of stress fractures, positive on radiograph, were studied. Of these 32 cases comprised the control group and underwent conventional therapy while 45 cases were treated with UST as out-door patients. Mean duration of treatment in conventional therapy including sick leave was 75.3 days and mean hospitalization period was 37.28 days. Mean duration of treatment with UST was 15.05 days. Results of the study prove that UST speeds up healing of stress fractures and drastically reduces the time required to return to training, thus saving the lost number of manpower days.

Keywords: Stress fractures; Ultrasound therapy.

Fig. 1

A bar diagram showing the cases of stress fractures per thousand recruits during 1996-98. The absolute number of cases in the three years varied, as did the recruit intake.

Fig. 2

A radiograph of a patient showing a ‘dreaded black line’ at anterior cortex of the middle third of tibia. This demonstrates non-union and suggests bony resorption. These patients are at high risk for progression to complete fractures, delayed or non-union.

Fig. 3

Radiograph of the same patient as shown in Fig. 2 after 8 days of ultrasound therapy, shows obliteration of the ‘dreaded black line’. This also corresonded with the clinical healing of the stress fracture.