Abstract
Surgical treatment of epicondylitis is still a topic of discussion mainly with regard to timing and type of therapy and to long-term results. Many surgical techniques have been suggested (and used by us, too), such as: tendon scarification, possibly in association with bone drilling, epicondylar muscle detachment and sensory deafferentation. Nevertheless, these techniques show some limits: general or peripheral anaesthesia, invasive approach, post-operative immobilisation (requiring rehabilitation), and a long time for recovery (2 months in our experience) with a delay in working activities.
For more than a year we have been using radiofrequency treatment: in day-surgery, with minimally invasive technique and local anaesthesia in case of failure of non-surgical and/or infiltrative treatments. Patients were selected after differential diagnosis with other diseases (fibromyalgia, polymyalgia rheumatica, and thoracic outlet syndrome). Even if our follow-up is quite short, the results of the evaluation of the 54 treated patients show: immediate disappearance of pain, fast functional recovery, return to working activities after 3 weeks, no short-term recurrence and absence of complications.
