Treating elbow pain: physiotherapy or cortisone injection: Profs Vicenzino, Cook & Dr Coombes

Lateral epicondylalgia, often referred to by patients as tennis elbow, has a range of treatment options available to the clinician. A group at the University of Queensland, Australia, headed by Bill Vicenzino have been investigating short and long term outcomes of different treatment modalities. Last month, they published an RCT in JAMA examining the effect of corticosteroid injection, physiotherapy, or both on clinical outcomes in patients with unilateral lateral epicondylalgia.

Professor Jill Cook asks the hard question - is it time to drop corticosteroid injection from the treatment options for tennis elbow?