Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital's Low-Dose Radiation Therapy Helps Patients Get Rid of Joint Inflammation Pain

Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital announced today in a press release that Ms. Chen had long suffered from chronic left shoulder joint pain. She had tried traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture, rehabilitation, and orthopedic reduction treatments, but with very limited results. To help the patient improve her pain, Dr. Wang Szu-tsan, director of the Pain Center at Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital, referred her to the Department of Radiation Oncology for low-dose radiation therapy.

Ms. Chen stated that after the first treatment, her shoulder immediately felt "relieved," and her arm, which was previously unable to move freely, could now move without restriction. After completing half of the course of treatment, only a slight soreness remained, and her quality of life significantly improved.

Dr. Wang Szu-tsan said that Ms. Chen's MRI examination showed a tendon tear and a large ganglion cyst behind her scapula, which were the causes of her left shoulder joint pain. Although her condition improved after ultrasound-guided aspiration of the cyst and multiple injection treatments, it recurred, leading to the recommendation for low-dose radiation therapy.

Dr. Wang Szu-tsan emphasized that the causes of chronic musculoskeletal pain are complex. When first-line treatments such as hyaluronic acid, glucose, steroids, or high-concentration platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections reach a bottleneck, or when patients have concerns about invasive procedures such as nerve ablation or micro-arterial embolization, non-invasive low-dose radiation therapy becomes an important second-line alternative.

Dr. Chen Liang-cheng, a radiation oncologist, explained that the principle of low-dose radiation therapy is to use the immune response of low-dose radiation to inhibit inflammatory cytokines, thereby achieving anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. The treatment dose is safe, and the total dose is extremely low, less than 1/20 of conventional cancer radiation therapy. Statistics currently show that for chronic pain patients whose conservative treatments have failed, approximately 60% to 90% experience significant pain relief.

Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital reminds the public that if they suffer from long-term joint pain, and have been diagnosed with chronic inflammation by orthopedics, traditional Chinese medicine, pain management, or rheumatology and immunology departments with limited success from conservative treatments, they can consult the Department of Radiation Oncology to evaluate whether low-dose radiation therapy is applicable to improve their pain. (Editor: Hsieh Ya-chu) 1150408