Forty three patients with persistent rotator cuff tendinitis unresponsive to other conservative treatment successfully completed an 8 week double blind controlled study of 'high' (8 hour/day) and 'low' (2 hour/day) dose pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Twenty four patients were randomly allocated to the high dose and 19 to the low dose regime. The use of portable battery driven field generators resulted in good patient compliance. Results consistently favoured the high dose group for pain score, improvement in painful arc, pain on resisted abduction, and improvement in active range of movement, but failed to show significant increased benefit at 8 weeks. Higher dose treatment did produce significantly faster improvement (p < 0.05 or less) for the last three variables within the first 4 weeks. At 1 year around 60% of both groups continue to have benefited. Dose response was therefore not linear, both high and low dose regimes producing similar overall outcome. The choice would appear to be between high dose for a shorter period or more prolonged low dose treatment.

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