05 Apr
13:00

PhD Defence Freek Urbaan Verstraelen

Supervisor: Prof. dr. L.W. van Rhijn

Co-supervisors: Dr. E.J.P. Jansen, Dr. M.C. van der Steen

Keywords: Shoulder, needle aspiration, shockwave treatment, surgical treatment, calcifying tendinitis
 

"Treatment of conservative therapy resistant calcifying tendinitis of the shoulder Evaluation of minimal invasive and surgical treatment options"

This PhD thesis is written based on several studies with a clinical character. Each study is based on a clclinical research question in an attempt to optimize the treatment of patients with therapy-resistant calcifying tendinitis of the shoulder. To this end, several studies were executed en different therapies were evaluated. 
Up till now, there is some discussion on what is the optimal care for patients in which the initial conservative treatment fails. Historically a surgical treatment was chosen. But what kind of surgical treatment? In this thesis, the studies show that when a surgical treatment is chosen that the calcific deposits need to be debrided and only to perform an additional subacromial decompression when signs of subacromial impingement are present. 
However, in the majority a surgical treatment can be avoided by choosing a minimally invasive treatment for patients with therapy-resistant calcifying tendinitis of the shoulder. Available options for this are needle aspiration of the calcific deposits (NACD) and shockwave therapy (ESWT). This thesis shows that both treatment modalities are safe and reduce the need for surgical treatment. Al the aforementioned statement led to the following updated treatment algorithm. 

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