Shock waves are high-energy acoustic waves characterized by an initial rise of high pressure within a very short rise time, followed by a low tensile amplitude. Extracorporeal shock wave therapy has been documented to have various effects on bones and soft tissue. ESWT acts through mechanotransduction and leads to biological responses at cellular level including...Read More
Patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) often display Raynaud’s phenomenon and digital skin ulcers. As these ulcers are not associated with autoimmune factors or abnormal coagulation, conventional immunosuppressive therapies, vasodilators, and anticoagulants are often ineffective. Here, we used extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) to treat these ulcers. Nine SSc patients with new digital ulcers, previously treated...Read More
CREST syndrome is a variant of systemic sclerosis, which affects a relatively small number of patients. CREST (also called limited cutaneous scleroderma) has a more favorable prognosis than the diffuse form of scleroderma. However, cutaneous calcinosis, which occurs during the disease course, is always difficult to manage. There are very few satisfactory medical and surgical...Read More
Prof. Hilde Beele (MD), Steven Smet, Francis Ramboer, at Ghent University Hospital faced up to the great challenge in the treatment of non-healing diabetic foot wounds and demonstrated the beneficial effect for Hard-to-Heal conditions with SoftWave Therapy. Click here to read more.Read More
Skin grafting is one of the most common treatment options for permanent replacement of lost skin and proven effective in burn patients. The procedure consists of transplantation of skin or artificial dermal replacements, and in some instances underlying tissues, harvested from one anatomical location to a different location. However the ischemic insult, due to nature...Read More
Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT), first described in the eighties for the treatment of urolithiasis, has also been applied in other fields such as orthopaedics and chronic wound care. Recently it has also been used in the treatment of burns and its sequelae since several studies suggest it could be an important tool in the...Read More
We studied the effects of ESWT in 8 SSc female patients who received 4 consecutive ESWT sessions (Dermagold– MTS Germany defocused lithotripter device, 10.000 shots/ session applied at the energy level of 0.06 mJ/mmq, frequency of 5 Hz), weekly applied to both hands and to one forearm, keeping the contralateral forearm as control. Circulating vascular...Read More
This study investigated the plasma protein expression in the extracorporeal shock wave therapy group and diabetic controls using proteomic study. A dorsal skin defect (6 × 5 cm) in a streptozotocin-induced diabetic Wistar rat model was used. Diabetic rats receiving either no therapy or extracorporeal shock wave therapy after wounding were analyzed. The spots of...Read More
Wound healing disorders after vein harvesting for coronary artery bypass graft surgery increase morbidity and lower patient satisfaction. Low-energy shock wave therapy (SWT) reportedly improves healing of diabetic and vascular ulcers by overexpression of vascular endothelial growth fractor and downregulation of necrosis factor B. In this study, we investigate whether prophylactic low-energy SWT improves wound...Read More
