Role of shear wave elastography in the diagnostic evaluation of plantar fasciitis: a prospective case-control study.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the advantage of the addition of shear wave elastography (SWE) to gray-scale sonography in the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. METHODS: 30 subjects between 18-60 years of age with unilateral heel pain who were clinically suspected of having plantar fasciitis were included in this study. Their affected feet were taken as cases; while their contralateral feet served as controls. On gray-scale ultrasound, the thickness of plantar fascia, its echopattern, presence of hypoechoic areas, and perifasicular collections were recorded. SWE was done by placing seven ROIs within the plantar fascia; and the mean of their Young's modulus was taken in kPa. RESULTS: Plantar fascial thickening more than 4 mm had 70% sensitivity and 66.7% specificity, echopattern had 90% sensitivity and 96.7% specificity, hypoechoic areas had 80% sensitivity and 96.7% specificity, and perifascial edema had 26.7% sensitivity and 100% specificity for diagnosing plantar fasciitis. Using the ROC curve, the cut-off value of Young's modulus for the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis was found to be ≤ 99.286 kPa. This predicted plantar fasciitis with 97% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The primary diagnostic feature of ultrasound of plantar fascia thickness more than 4 mm detected 21 out of 30 cases of plantar fasciitis; whereas elastography detected an additional 8 cases which would have been missed on B-mode ultrasound alone. CONCLUSIONS: SWE is a useful supplement and improves the diagnostic accuracy of gray-scale ultrasound in plantar fasciitis.

Prospective Randomized Study of Oral Diazepam and Baclofen on Spasticity in Cerebral Palsy.

INTRODUCTION: Spastic cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common form of CP. Diazepam and Baclofen are the most commonly used oral drugs to manage spasticity. Study was designed to evaluate and compare their effects and safety in CP children. AIM: Study was aimed to assess and compare outcome of oral Diazepam and Baclofen in spastic cerebral palsy children in terms of extent of reduction of spasticity and side effects profile. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Randomized prospective follow-up study was done for one year after giving Diazepam and Baclofen in weekly incremental doses upto recommended maximum dose to 60 children for three months. Two primary outcome measures were spasticity reduction and adverse effect profile. Spasticity reduction was measured by Modified Ashworth's Scale (MAS) and Range of Motion improvement (ROM). RESULTS: After random allocation, there was no baseline difference between groups. Mean MAS score improved from 1.96±0.4 at baseline to 1.63±0.40 and 1.41± 0.36 at 1 month and 3 months for Diazepam and from 1.84±0.64 to 1.57±0.59 and 1.31± 0.48 respectively for Baclofen. Within the group reduction was significant with p-value = 0.0001. Intergroup comparison showed no statistically significant difference with p-value of 0.48 and 0.22 at 1 and 3 months. Baseline ROM showed significant improvement at 1 and 3 months with p value of 0.004 and 0.001 for Diazepam and 0.01 and 0.000 for Baclofen respectively with no statistically significant difference among two groups. Drowsiness was most common observed side effect in both the groups. CONCLUSION: Patients showed significant improvement in spasticity as measured by Mean MAS score and range of motion in Diazepam as well as Baclofen group. Both drugs were found safe for use in children. Study couldn't establish any difference between the two drugs. However studies with bigger sample size and longer follow- up assessing functional improvement in patients will be required in near future.