Efficacy of diclofenac & thiocolchioside gel phonophoresis comparison with ultrasound therapy on acute low back pain; a prospective, double-blind, randomized clinical study

Purpose: To investigate the effect of Phonophoresis (PP) with the combination of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID's) and myorelaxant versus routine Ultrasound (US) treatment with non-therapeutic gel on the patients with acute low back pain (ABP). Methods: Sixty patients with ABP were randomly assigned into 2 groups. In Group 1 (n = 30) US was applied using diclofenac + Thiocolchicoside gel for 10 min and for a total of 10 sessions. In Group 2 (n = 30) the same US protocol was applied with the same setting and timing with Group 1 using US gel that does not contain any pharmaceutical ingredient. Evaluation parameters were Visual numeric scale (VNS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and Shober test. Results: Comparison of the results obtained from the two groups before treatment and at second (W2) and sixth weeks (W6) posttreatment showed significant improvement in all parameters in both groups (p < 0.05). Comparison of the groups showed significantly superior improvement in Group 1 for ODI while there was no difference in other parameters at W2. At W6, there was significantly superior improvement in all parameters (p < 0.05) except for Shober test in Group1. Conclusion: Our results showed that PP treatment is superior than conventional US therapy at short term in ABP patients.