Effectiveness of extracorporeal shock wave therapy in comparison with other methods of treatment of patients with plantar fasciitis: literature review

Plantar fasciitis (PF) is one of the most common causes of pain in the heel area, which is associated with the presence of inflammation in the plantar fascia and is most often localized in the medial part of the heel area. Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) is a method of hardware treatment that has been used in orthopedics and traumatology for the past decades. One of the main diseases successfully treated with this method is plantar fasciitis. The aim of the work was to determine the effectiveness of extracorporeal shock wave therapy in the treatment of plantar fasciitis compared to other methods of conservative treatment based on the literature review. Research literary sources from scientific electronic databases PubMed, Medline and other sources of scientific and medical information were analyzed. A literature search was performed using search queries specifying the method under study and plantar fasciitis, namely: «Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy», «Plantar Fasciitis», «Conservative Treatment», «Physiotherapy». During the search, 473 scien­tific articles devoted to the treatment of plantar fasciitis were selected. Given the large number of articles and the desire to present up-to-date data, the query was limited to the last 9 years (from 2015 to 2023) and 417 articles were selected. Articles devoted to other methods of treatment of PF (conservative and surgical) and articles devoted to the use of ESWT in orthopedic and traumatological diseases of other localizations were excluded from the search results. At the second stage of the search, articles devoted exclusively to the treatment of PF by the ESWT method were excluded, and sources comparing the effectiveness of ESWT treatment with other methods of conservative treatment were selected (31 articles). The main results – it was determined that extracorporeal shock wave therapy continues to remain one of the main methods of conservative treatment of PF, which has been used for the last decades. It has proven its high efficiency and safety in the treatment of PF. Compared with other methods of conservative treatment of PF, extracorporeal shock wave therapy remains one of the most effective, it is successfully used in the treatment of PF.