Clinical Study of Acupotomy Treatment for Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome

Abstract

Background Compared with conventional closed therapy, acupotomy has the advantages of lower cost, convenient application, and better single and long-term effects. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical effect of acupotomy in the treatment of Tarsal Tunnel syndrome. Methods There were 80 patients enrolled into the study who were randomly assigned to either the acupotomy or closed therapy group, with 40 patients in each group. The acupotomy group was treated once every 6 days, on 3 occasions for the duration of treatment, and the closed therapy group was treated twice a week, for 3 weeks as the course of treatment. The effects of treatment were analyzed and evaluated according to the standard of curative effect. Results The “cure rate” of the number of patients in the acupotomy group whose symptoms had completely disappeared (13 patient out of 39) was higher than the closed therapy group (1 patient out of 39), and this difference was significant (p < 0.01). The number of patients in the acupotomy group who did not benefit from the therapy (5 patients) was significantly lower than the closed therapy group (15 patients; p < 0.05). The total number of patients in the acupotomy group who benefitted from the therapy (34 patients) resulted in an effective rate of 87.18%, which was higher than the closed therapy group (24 patients; 61.53%). The difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Conclusion Acupotomy is effective in the treatment of Tarsal Tunnel syndrome, was superior to traditional closed therapy, and is worthy of clinical application.

Keywords

• acupotomy
• randomized controlled trial
• tarsal tunnel syndrome