Objective To observe the clinical efficacy of fire-needle acupuncture in treating myofascial pain syndrome (MPS). Method Seventy-two patients with MPS were randomized into a treatment group and a control group, 36 in each group. The treatment group was intervened by fire-needle acupuncture, while the control group was by ordinary acupuncture. The short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) was observed before and after the intervention, and the clinical efficacy was compared. Result The total effective rate and markedly-effective rate were respectively 94.4% and 77.8% in the treatment group versus 80.6% and 30.6%in the control group. There was a significant difference in comparing the markedly-effective rate between the two groups (P<0.01). The MPQ item scores [pain rating index (PRI), present pain intensity (PPI), and visual analogue scale (VAS)] were significantly changed after intervention in both groups (P<0.05). After intervention, the MPQ item scores of the treatment group were significantly different from that of the control group (P<0.05). Conclusion Fire-needle acupuncture is an effective method in treating MPS.

The ultrasound endoscopic probes with very small size transducers are normally imaging by focused ultrasound beamforming technology. So the imaging frame rate is not very high, which cannot meet the needs of some clinical applications based on high imaging rate. In recent years, plane-wave ultrafast imaging technology can obtain high image frame rate and guarantee the image quality. In this paper, a plane wave ultra-fast imaging technique based on a home-made small line array ultrasound transducer is presented. Feasibility of the method is verified by simulation estimations and phantom experiments. The results show that for the small size transducer design of plane wave ultrafast imaging, it is necessary to fully consider the combination of the array element width and the number of array elements. So that a good plane wave imaging quality can be obtained. It lays a foundation for the ultra-fast imaging of plane wave in the interventional ultrasound imaging and ultrasound endoscopy.
Phantoms, Imaging ; Transducers ; Ultrasonography ; instrumentation