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Updated: Aug 13, 2025
Predictive Measurement for Windlass Change in Length and Selected Treatment Outcomes in Chronic Plantar Fasciitis
Published on: March 1, 2024
Shear-wave elastography of the plantar fascia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Domenico Albano1, Carmelo Messina2,3, Salvatore Gitto3
1Unità Operativa di Radiologia Diagnostica e Interventistica, IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi, 20161, Milan, Italy. albanodomenico.md@gmail.com.
Purpose:
To assess the efficacy of shear-wave elastography (SWE) of the plantar fascia (PF) in identifying plantar fasciitis.
Methods:
A literature search was conducted on the PubMed and Medline databases for articles published up to August 2022. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale was used to assess the risk of bias. We included original research studies in English dealing with the evaluation of patients with plantar fasciitis by means of SWE and including shear modulus (KPa) and/or shear-wave velocity (m/s). We compared healthy and pathologic PF stiffness using the standardised mean difference (SMD) in a random-effects model (95% CI).
Results:
Five studies were included with a total of 158 pathologic PFs and 134 healthy PFs. No significant publication bias was detected. Studies were highly heterogeneous (p < 0.00001; I2 = 97%). Pathologic PFs showed significantly lower stiffness, with an SMD of - 3.00 m/s (95% confidence interval: - 4.95 to - 1.06, p = 0.002), compared to healthy PF.
Conclusion:
Pathologic PFs present significantly lower stiffness than healthy PFs. However, the analysed studies are highly heterogeneous.
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