Assessment Of Functional Outcome of Local Corticosteroid Injection in The Treatment Of Lateral Epicondylitis.

Abstract

Background: - An inflammatory disorder most commonly referred as Tennis Elbow develops in the region of common extensor tendon origin of the forearm. It is also known as Lateral Epicondylitis or Lateral Epicondylalgia. Symptoms of this disorder are seen in 1% to 3% of the general population. This is the long standing, painful, uncomfortable and the most frequent elbow condition. It is more prevalent among workers who often rotate their forearms, such as carpenters, gardeners, computer programmers, and knitters. An equal number of men and women get lateral epicondylitis, which typically develops between the ages of 35 and 50. Most frequently, the dominant upper limb is affected.

Methods: - This study is called as prospective study which includes 40 patients, who were diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis between August 2020 and January 2022 at Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital, Chromepet, Chennai. Out of 40 Patients, 22 Patients were female and 18 were male.

The goal of the current research is to analyse the efficacy of local corticosteroid injection therapy for tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis).

Results:- 40 patients were taken into this study and they were given corticosteroid injection and VAS score as well as DASH score were calculated before the injection of corticosteroid drug and after the injection of corticosteroid injection. They were calculated at the 4 weeks interval after the injection of corticosteroid injection. The results were found to be in the decreasing fashion. The patients symptoms were improved a lot after the injection of corticosteroid drug. In this study the scores were found be in the decreasing fashion.

Decreasing fashion of scores after the injection of corticosteroid drug implies the good outcome of corticosteroid injection in the patients of lateral epicondylitis.

Conclusions:- From this study we would like to conclude that, in carefully selected patients with lateral epicondylitis, who didn’t respond to regular conservative methods and were treated with corticosteroid injection, have shown significant improvement in their outcome like pain relief, grip strength etc. irrespective of sex, side and age of the patients. The maximum improvement is seen in the first 3 weeks. All the patients who participated in this study have resumed their occupation by 3 weeks, the earliest being 1 week.