A randomised control trial of physiotherapy and corticosteroid injections of lateral epicondylalgia in primary care. [ 2003 - 2005 ]

Research Grant

Researchers: Prof Guglielmo Vicenzino (Principal investigator) ,  E/Pr Gwendolen Jull ,  Prof Peter Brooks

Brief description Musculoskeletal conditions account for the third leading cause of health systems expenditure in Australia. Lateral epicondylalgia (tennis elbow) is such a condition and is often treated in primary care. Both the individual and community are affected by this condition: 7 per 1000 patients seeing their medical doctor have this condition. Most are not tennis related. On average 10-30% of sufferers take 12 weeks off work. The condition may last 6-48 months and it tends to become stubborn to treatment and recurs often. Two popular treatment options that are commonly prescribed for the management of lateral epicondylalgia are physiotherapy and corticosteroid injections. To date there is little evidence supporting physiotherapy, especially current best practice methods such as manual therapy and therapeutic exercise. The lack of evidence is largely due to a small number of studies of physiotherapy, most of which are of poor quality and of treatments that are currently deemed to be less than optimal. A larger number of studies of corticosteroid injections have shown that corticosteroid injections are beneficial in the short term (3-6 weeks), but not over 12 months where they are associated with greater recurrence rates. Manual therapy has been shown to have short term pain relieving effects and therapeutic exercise exerts long standing improvements in this condition. It is proposed that the addition of manual therapy to therapeutic exercise will have superior short- and long-term effects. This project will conduct a randomised clinical trial to evaluate this proposition and also the factors associated with success, failure or recurrence rates. A cost-benefit analysis will also be conducted to calculate the relative economic merits of the treatments. A tangible outcome of this project will be the development of clinical guidelines for the most effective method of treating lateral epicondylalgia in primary health care.

Funding Amount $AUD 193,775.00

Funding Scheme NHMRC Project Grants

Notes Standard Project Grant