Predictors of Outcome Following Tenotomy in Patients with Recalcitrant Epicondylopathy

Elbow tendinopathies are associated with tenderness, pain, and functional disability with ensuing socioeconomic costs. There is lack of consensus regarding the best treatment for patients recalcitrant to first-line conservative treatments. Percutaneous needle tenotomy is considered a regenerative approach that injures the tendon to elicit a healing response.

To investigate whether demographic characteristics, clinical factors, baseline sonographic entities, or their interactions are related to the likelihood of responding positively to needle tenotomy over a 1-year follow-up period.

Prospective case series.

Tertiary institutional hospital.

Patients with elbow tendinopathy for whom conservative treatments had failed and who had persistent symptoms lasting for at least 3 months.

Patients underwent needle tenotomy with or without PRP followed by a lighter needle tenotomy within a 2-week interval as part of treatment.

Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) and Visual Analogue Scale for pain (VAS-P) scores were assessed before intervention (baseline) and at 6 weeks and 3, 6, and 12 months after intervention. A generalized linear mixed effects model was created to examine whether injectate type, clinical, demographic, or pretreatment sonographic entities or their interactions influenced clinical outcomes.

The authors analyzed 74 elbows (71 patients). At baseline, analyzed patients (mean age: 49.48 years; 51.35% women) scored 43.30 and 5.83 on the DASH and VAS-P, respectively. Pretreatment tendon vascularization was a predictor of pain (P = .011) and DASH score changes (P = .019). The linear mixed effect model revealed that male gender and hypercholesterolemia were associated with enhanced functional recovery, (P = .020 and P < .001, respectively). Moreover, the interactions between pretreatment vascular status (P = .039), echotexture (P = .037) and enthesophytes (P = .028) influenced the temporal pattern of functional recovery after needle tenotomy.

Baseline patient characteristics, such as gender and hypercholesterolemia, along with ultrasound features may be predictive of outcomes following needle tenotomy for elbow tendinopathy.

IV (NCT01945528).