According to a study published online in The American Journal of Sports Medicine (AJSM), radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy (rESWT) may offer little additional benefit to patients treated with supervised exercise for subacromial shoulder pain. 

The authors conducted a randomized, controlled trial of 143 patients with subacromial shoulder pain who were treated with supervised exercise and either rESWT or sham rESWT. At 24-week follow-up, they found that patients in both cohorts displayed similar improvement in Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) compared with baseline. However, patients with calcification in the rotator cuff who were treated with rESWT displayed a greater improvement in SPADI score compared to sham rESWT patients at 24 weeks. Learn more...