OBJECTIVE: To compare the effectiveness of radial extracorporeal shockwave treatment with that of supervised exercises in patients with shoulder pain. DESIGN: Single blind randomised study. SETTING: Outpatient clinic of physical medicine and rehabilitation department in Oslo, Norway. PARTICIPANTS: 104 patients with subacromial shoulder pain lasting at least three months. INTERVENTIONS: Radial extracorporeal shockwave treatment: one session weekly for four to six weeks. Supervised exercises: two 45 minute sessions weekly for up to 12 weeks. Primary outcome measure Shoulder pain and disability index. RESULTS: A treatment effect in favour of supervised exercises at 6, 12, and 18 weeks was found. The adjusted treatment effect was -8.4 (95% confidence interval -16.5 to -0.6) points. A significantly higher proportion of patients in the group treated with supervised exercises improved-odds ratio 3.2 (1.3 to 7.8). More patients in the shockwave treatment group had additional treatment between 12 and 18 weeks-odds ratio 5.5 (1.3 to 26.4). CONCLUSION: Supervised exercises were more effective than radial extracorporeal shockwave treatment for short term improvement in patients with subacromial shoulder pain. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00653081.
Reproduced with permission from the BMJ Publishing Group.

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