Hello. I'm Dr. Dongkyu Lee, an orthopedic specialist. Looking outside from my office, the rain is pouring down heavily. On days like this with high humidity, patients with joint problems tend to suffer more. When humidity is high, temperatures are low, or atmospheric pressure drops, it affects the synovial fluid within joints, causing more severe pain for those with inflammation or poor joint conditions. There's truth to the saying of elderly people tapping their knees and saying, "It must be about to rain..." For those with calcific tendinitis, even if the pain is manageable outside of acute phases, days like this can make the pain worse. Today, I'll show you another case. This patient had been suffering for years from calcific tendinitis, receiving injections and shockwave therapy whenever the pain flared up. Eventually, the injections stopped working and the pain became so severe it felt like the arm would fall off, so the treating hospital suggested surgery. The patient couldn't have surgery due to personal circumstances, but the pain was unbearable, so after extensive searching, they found information about calcific deposit aspiration, a non-surgical treatment for calcific tendinitis, and came to see me. Let's look at the condition.
On the X-ray, a very large calcific deposit is visible in the area indicated by the yellow arrow within the red circle. Let's also look at the MRI the patient brought in.
Similarly, a very large calcific deposit is also visible on the MRI on the right. On MRI, calcification appears black. Even calcific deposits this large can be sufficiently removed with calcific deposit aspiration. Local anesthesia is applied to control pain. A specialized guide and drill are used to crush the calcification, and saline solution is used to flush and remove the crushed deposits. Additionally, regenerative therapy was performed to treat the tendon after calcification removal. Calcific deposit aspiration was performed on this patient.
In the video above, you can see the crushed white calcification gradually rising into the syringe. After repeating this process several times, most of the calcification can be removed.
Looking at the syringe photo after the procedure, the white material inside the syringe is the calcification removed through the aspiration procedure. An enormous amount of calcification was removed. Now let me show you the post-procedure X-ray.
On the post-procedure X-ray, the large calcific deposit that was previously visible has disappeared.
Comparing the before and after images, the removal of the calcification is even more clearly evident. The patient's pain improved dramatically after the procedure, and she was thrilled that she was treated without surgery. Although she felt a bit frustrated about the years of suffering, she was very satisfied with how well the treatment went.
Calcific tendinitis can be treated without surgery using calcific deposit aspiration.
