The Clinical Efficacy of Different Durations of Suprascapular Nerve Pulsed Radiofrequency

Pulsed radiofrequency (pRF) treatment of suprascapular nerve can be used successfully to alleviate pain due to shoulder impingement syndrome and supraspinatus tendinosis. Radiofrequency waves produced by radiofrequency (RF) generator through pRF modality are applied to suprascapular nerve and create magnetic field. This field leads to pain modulation by changing neuronal activity and resulting in long term depression of pain transmitting nerve fibers. Temperature around nerve never exceeds 42 degree and by this way the nerve can be protected from coagulation necrosis and demiyelinisation. pRF can be used in the treatment of mixed type nerves such as suprascapular nerve. There are preclinical and clinical studies which report that with longer pRF duration, more favorable analgesia. Suprascapular pRF is performed with 22G, 10 cm, 5 mm active lead RF needle via USG guided posterior approach as institution procotol. Howeveri clinicians can choose any duration of pRF. Instution's pain medicine practitioners HAU and GEO choose 4 and 9 minutes of pRF duration, respectively. Investigators' aim is to investigate the efficacy of two different pRF duration, 4 and 9 minutes, on Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) and Numeric Rating Scale-11(NRS-11) at 3 month follow-up.