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Current Beliefs about Ultrasound for Bone Fractures
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Posted on: 12/14/2004
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Ultrasound (US) has been thought to delay wound healing in fractures. But new studies show that US may, in fact, help broken bones heal faster. The key is the intensity of the sound wave. Low-intensity ultrasound speeds up healing time in animals and humans. Are doctors and physical therapists aware of this? They see more patients with fractures than anyone else.
In this study, doctors and therapists were asked three sets of questions:
1) Can US reduce healing time in fractures? 2) Do you use US for fracture healing in your patients? If not, why not? 3) What time frame would be major improvement in fracture healing?
Most doctors thought US might reduce healing time for some patients. Only two doctors out of 25 thought US has been proven to speed up healing time for fractures. Many physical therapists thought US could help fracture healing. But they were also worried about the harm of using US over a fracture.
Doctors who don't use US for fracture healing say there isn't enough proof yet. Some say that the cost is too high, or that the US isn't available for this use. Therapists agree US isn't available. But therapists also said the risk of harm was a reason they aren't using US for fractures.
Most doctors said that it would be important news if fractures healed two or four weeks faster with US. A few put that number at eight weeks instead. Therapists thought an improvement of two weeks was enough. A few therapists indicated that four weeks was more impressive.
US is rarely used to heal bone. Doctors think there's no proof that it works. Therapists see it as being harmful to healing bone. A few studies show that US heals bone faster and reduces health care costs. More studies are needed to define the role of US in bone fractures.
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References:
Jason W. Busse, DC, MSc, and Mohit Bhandari, MD, MSc, FRCSC. Therapeutic Ultrasound and Fracture Healing: A Survey of Beliefs and Practices. In Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. October 2004. Vol. 85. No. 10. Pp. 1653-1656.
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