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Radiotherapy Treatment for Plantar Fasciitis

X-ray treatment is used to help a variety of medical conditions.

In plantar fasciitis, it has been shown in randomised clinical trials to reduce pain in 80% of patients who have tried and failed other treatments.

Radiotherapy Treatment for Plantar Fasciitis

By treating resistant Plantar Fasciitis with low-dose radiotherapy, your heel pain can be significantly reduced. For the best results, we only recommend radiotherapy to patients who are still experiencing discomfort after a minimum of three months of general measures (including rest, stretching and changing footwear) to relieve Plantar Fasciitis pain.

Our consultants are nationally-renowned specialists in radiotherapy for Plantar Fasciitis, with extensive experience of how to achieve the best possible treatment outcome. We’ll advise you whether this treatment is likely to be effective for you depending on your stage of disease.

Person in gym wear with heel injury

Effectiveness of Radiotherapy for Plantar Fasciitis

A study evaluated the outcomes of radiotherapy in the management of pain for patients with Plantar Fasciitis.¹ Before treatment, 90.8% of patients in the study had severe pain in their feet and the rest had moderate pain. At a six-month follow-up after treatment, 87.7% of patients had reported an improvement in their pain as a result of radiotherapy.

A second piece of research looked to compare improvement in Plantar Fasciitis pain in patients that were treated with either local steroid injections or low-dose radiotherapy.² The findings showed that six months after treatment, 88.3% of radiotherapy patients reported a decrease in pain. Conversely, only 59.4% of patients that were treated with steroid injections reported reduced pain after the same amount of time.

¹ Heyd, R., Tselis, N., Ackermann, H., Röddiger, S. and Zamboglou, N. (2007). Radiation Therapy for Painful Heel Spurs. Strahlentherapie und Onkologie, 2007, 183(1), pp.3-9.

² Canyilmaz, E., Canyilmaz, F., Aynaci, O., Colak, F., Serdar, L., Uslu, G., Aynaci, O. and Yoney, A., 2015. Prospective Randomized Comparison of the Effectiveness of Radiation Therapy and Local Steroid Injection for the Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis. International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, 92(3), pp.659-666.

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