CClinicalTrials.gg
Active, not recruitingNCT06732570lasershoulderUpdated Dec 13, 2024

Effect of High Intensity Laser on Shoulder Impingement.

An interventional study of high intensity laser and manual therapy in High Intensity Laser, Shoulder Impingement Syndrome and Shoulder Pain, sponsored by Cairo University. Active, not recruiting at 1 site in Egypt. Open to participants aged 12 Years to 18 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2024-12-13.

Sponsored by Cairo University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

From the registry’s dates

  • Primary completion was expected by Jun 2026, 3 months ago, but the record still lists the study as active, not recruiting.
  • Registered 9 months after the study started (first participant enrolled Feb 2024, registered Dec 2024).
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
40
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
12 Years to 18 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Treatment for shoulder impingement is conservative initially, Rehabilitation programs generally consist of exercise therapy and manual therapy that provide relief from symptoms of impingement. High-intensity laser therapy used recently and was found to be effective in the short term in the treatment of pain and disability in patients with impingement.

This study aims to

  • Investigate the effect of high intensity power laser therapy on sonographic measurement in the adolescent suffering from shoulder impingement syndrome.
  • Investigate the effect of high intensity power laser therapy on pain in the adolescent suffering from shoulder impingement syndrome.
  • Investigate the effect of high intensity power laser therapy on shoulder function in the adolescent suffering from shoulder impingement syndrome.

RESEARCH QUESTION:

Does using high intensity power laser affects shoulder dysfunction in adolescent with shoulder impingement syndrome?

Read the detailed description

Shoulder symptoms are often persistent and recurrent and represents approximately one fifth of all musculoskeletal disability payment. One of the most common causes of shoulder pain is the occurrence of tendinopathy resulting from the impingement of rotator cuff tendons under the coracoacromial arch which refer to impingement syndrome.

Treatment for shoulder impingement is conservative initially, Rehabilitation programs generally consist of exercise therapy that provide relief from symptoms of impingement, Exercise therapy has been shown to be effective in the reducing pain and improving function also it was stated that the exercise therapy lead to improving shoulder musculoskeletal risk factors in competitive athletes with Specific exercise was superior to non-specific exercise. Strong recommendation may be made to include manual therapy as an adjunct intervention with exercise.

The manual therapy technique of joint mobilizations which are commonly used by physiotherapists for reducing pain and disability in patients with shoulder musculoskeletal disorders, Manual therapy which involves realigning collagen, enhancing fiber slip, reducing adhesion, and re-establishing correct gleno-humeral joint kinematics, can relieve pain by stimulating peripheral mechanical receptors, suppressing nociceptors, boosting synovial fluid nutrition, and reducing adhesion. It has been stated that impingement patients treated with manual therapy in combination with supervised exercise showed improvement in pain and function.

High-intensity laser therapy (HILT) is a treatment method that added to therapeutic interventions recently. HILT improves the microcirculation and tissue regeneration with photomechanic effects in deep tissues. Biostimulation, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic properties contribute to an effective improvement in painful bone-muscle-joint pathologies, including shoulder problems. Adding therapeutic interventions to laser therapy is usual in clinical practice. HILT was found to be effective in the short term in the treatment of pain and disability in patients with Sub-acromial pain syndrome.

Ultrasonography is recommended as the first line imaging tool to evaluate sports injuries; it has been used as the preferred technique for evaluating the subacromial space.

Algometers are devices that can be used to identify the pressure and/or force eliciting a pressure-pain threshold. . This technique is a well-known and well-validated method to induce acute experimental pain.

Null Hypothesis:

High intensity laser therapy will not affect the sonographic measurement in adolescents with shoulder impingement syndrome.

High intensity laser therapy will not affect the pain in adolescents with shoulder impingement syndrome.

High intensity power laser therapy will not affect the shoulder function in adolescents suffering from shoulder impingement syndrome.

Basic assumptions:

It will be assumed that:

  • All evaluation and treatment procedures will be performed in the same environment for all patients
  • All volunteers will attend the treatment program regularly.
  • All volunteers will be cooperative, following the instructions given to them, and exert their maximum effort during the study.
  • The results of the study will be helpful for physical therapists dealing with similar cases.
02

Conditions studied

  • High Intensity Laser
  • Shoulder Impingement Syndrome
  • Shoulder Pain

Keywords

  • high intensity laser, shoulder impingement, manual therapy, exercise therapy, shoulder dysfunction
  • shoulder function
  • pain
  • adolescents
03

In context

Shoulder Pain

707 studies on the registry are indexed under Shoulder Pain; 152 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 40 is below the median of 60 across 561 interventional studies indexed under Shoulder Pain.

Browse Shoulder Pain studies →

Lead sponsor

Cairo University is the lead sponsor of 4,780 studies on the registry; 1,427 are open to participants now.

Of its 36 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 5 (14%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
12 Years to 18 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

  1. Age was ranged between 12-18 years old.
  2. Unilateral pain in the anterolateral region of the shoulder.
  3. Has painful arc.
  4. 2 out of 3 impingement tests positive (Hawkins, Jobe and Neer).
  5. Pain with palpation of the supraspinatus tendon insertion.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Previous shoulder complex, cervical and thoracic fractures, or surgeries.
  2. Either cervical pain or arm radiculopathy.
  3. History of shoulder dislocation.
  4. Traumatic onset of the pain.
  5. No corticosteroid injections could have been received within 2 months prior to the study
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Single (Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
40 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Active comparator
    group A: manual therapy and exercise

    will receive the therapeutic exercises (rotator cuff strengthening, cools ex's, serratus punch ex, pectoralis minor flexibility and posterior capsule modified sleeper stretching ex's) and manual therapy (mulligan abduction, deep transverse friction technique on the supraspinatus muscle, scapular mobilization, caudal and posterior humeral mobilization), they will receive 15 consecutive sessions (three session weekly over 5 weeks).

    Other: manual therapy · Other: exercise therapy

  • Experimental
    group (B): high intensity laser, manual therapy, exercise therapy

    will receive high intensity laser therapy (PAGANI scanner 16 j/cm2, high power laser BI-POWER SN/ 477 made in Italy will be used)three sessions weekly over 5 weeks. the patient will be in supine position with shoulder uncovered from clothes and wearing laser protective eye glass, the dose will be selected from device pathologies list programs number thirty-four with 30% power, frequency continuous, density 16 j/cm2, time automatically adjusted by the device according to the width of scanning area ( superiorly from the acromioclavicular joint down to end of biceps tendon and medially from the coracoid process to the middle fiber of deltoid laterally) and the infrared will be ON. therapeutic exercises (rotator cuff strengthening, cools ex's, serratus punch ex, pectoralis minor flexibility and posterior capsule modified sleeper stretching ex's) and manual therapy (mulligan abduction, deep transverse friction on supraspinatus, scapular mobilization, caudal and posterior humerla glide)

    Device: high intensity laser · Other: manual therapy · Other: exercise therapy

Interventions

  • Devicehigh intensity laser

    the patient will be in supine position with shoulder uncovered from clothes and wearing laser protective eye glass to protect eye from laser radiation, the dose will be selected from device pathologies list programs number thirty-four with 30% power, frequency continuous, density 16 j/cm2, time automatically adjusted by the device according to the width of scanning area ( superiorly from the acromioclavicular joint down to end of biceps tendon and medially from the coracoid process to the middle fiber of deltoid laterally) and the infrared will be ON.

  • Othermanual therapy

    manual therapy (mulligan shoulder abduction, deep transverse friction technique on the supraspinatus tendon, scapular mobilization, caudal and posterior humeral mobilization) three session weekly over 5 weeks.

  • Otherexercise therapy

    therapeutic exercises (rotator cuff strengthening, cools ex's, serratus punch supine ex, pectoralis minor flexibility (focused and gross stretch) and posterior capsule modified sleeper stretching ex's from side)

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Acromio-humeral distance (AHD) and Coraco-humeral distance (CHD).

    Musculoskeletal Ultrasound (TOSHIBA Aplio 500, japan. Linear probe 12-15 MHZ) will be used to measure both distance (AHD\& CHD) with the injured shoulder in two angles 0- and 60-degrees abduction from scapular plane (40° front of the frontal plane). The subjects were instructed to sit upright in the chair and to place their feet on the floor with knees and hips 90 degrees flexion. the examiner took one ultrasound image at angle 0-degree abduction as thepatient's arm rest beside the body with the palm toward the body and the other image from 60 abduction from scaption. acromio-humeral distance calculated by measuring the linear distance from the most lateral edge of the acromion to the most proximal portion of the humeral head. Then for calculation of the coraco-humeral distance the ultrasound transducer was placed over the most anterior aspect of the shoulder, observing the coracoid process and the humeral head on the screen, taking the shortest distance between them (in centimeters).

    Time frame: measurements will be done pre and post 5 weeks (15 sessions, three sessions per week) of interventions.

  2. pain.

    pain: BASLINE push pull force gauge algometer (White Plains, New York 10602 USA) will be used to assess patient pain. An algometer can be used to objectively measure the first point of pressure required to produce symptoms at the most painful points in the long head of biceps tendon, under acromion area and deltoid with the patient relaxed and the affected shoulder will be uncovered from clothes.

    Time frame: measurements will be done pre and post 5 weeks (15 sessions, three sessions per week) of interventions.

  3. Function.

    Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) was developed to measure current shoulder pain and disability in an outpatient setting. The SPADI contains 13 items that assess two domains; a 5-item subscale that measures pain and an 8-item subscale that measures disability which take less than five minutes to complete. The examiner will describe to the patient the two scale parts, the pain scale that is summed up to a total of 50 while the disability scale sums up to 80. The total SPADI score is expressed as a percentage. A score of 0 indicates best, 100 indicates worst. A higher score shows more disability. In scoring SPADI, any question missed should be taken out of the total score of each subscale. i.e if 1 question is omitted in the pain section, the total score is divided by 40.

    Time frame: measurements will be done pre and post 5 weeks (15 sessions, three sessions per week) of interventions.

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Cairo University
    Giza, Egypt
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Dec 13, 2024, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT06732570
Lead sponsor
Cairo University
Responsible party
Abd Elkhalek Mansour Ahmed (physical therapist, Al Azhar university hospital, MSC, DPT, Cairo University) — Principal investigator
First posted
Dec 13, 2024
Start date
Feb 18, 2024
Primary completion
Jun 30, 2026 (estimated)
Completion
Dec 30, 2026 (estimated)
Last update
Dec 13, 2024

Study contacts

Abd ELkhalek Mansour Ahmed, MSC, DPT
study director · physical therapist, Al Azhar university hospital, Sayed Galal hospital
Khaled Ahmed olama, professor
study director · Physical Therapy, Department for Physical Therapy for pediatrics Faculty of Physical Therapy Cairo University
mohamed Ali Elshafey, professor
study director · Physical Therapy, Department for Physical Therapy for pediatrics Faculty of Physical Therapy Cairo University
hatem Mohamed El-Azizi, professor
study director · Radiology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in Dec 2024. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

Follow this study

Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.

Sign in to follow

Discussion

Questions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.

Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.

Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.

Start the discussion