Michael Chang, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
"Extracorporeal Shock Wave Treatment in Medicine"


ABSTRACT

For over 20 years, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) has been successfully used worldwide as a first-line treatment to disintegrate kidney stones. Using the similar physical principle, healing potential of extracorporeal shock wave treatment (ESWT) has been recently recognized for many chronic human musculoskeletal conditions. These conditions include insertional/calcified tendonopathy, fracture non-unions, chronic plantar fasciitis, lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow), osteonecrosis of the femoral head, heterotopic ossifications, contractures, spasticity, degenerative joint diseases, osteochondrosis dissecans, etc.  Although some clinical trials have been demonstrated both safety and efficacy of ESWT in many of these pathological conditions, its underlying healing mechanisms remain unclear. Furthermore, there have been wide variations of ESWT protocols used in these clinical trials. These treatment parameters need to be standardized for various pathological conditions and optimized for each patient in future ESWT applications. 

This presentation describes an on-going effort to bring scientists, engineers, industries and clinicians all together to study physics of shock wave (SW) generation, SW propagation, SW's interaction with biological tissue and biological responses.  Our ultimate goal is to understand SW’s healing mechanisms, to optimize treatment protocols for various pathological conditions, and to bring ESWT to patient care with maximal safety and efficacy.