A Systematic Review of Post-Procedural Rehabilitation Protocols following Percutaneous Needle Tenotomy and Ultrasonic Debridement for Gluteal, Proximal Hamstring, and Patellar Tendinopathy.

The authors did a formal quality appraisal of no study, so a protocol reported in a weak paper counts the same here as one from a strong paper. No results were pooled, so nothing here compares one protocol against another, or any protocol against no rehabilitation. Only English-language studies were included. Many papers did not say whether the procedure was needle fenestration or how many needle passes were used, so relevant studies may have been left out. Rehabilitation was usually a secondary or descriptive detail in the source papers, and only two studies stated how often the supervised programme was delivered, so intensity, monitoring and progression are largely unknown. The three tendon groups cover different patients, younger athletes for patellar and hamstring problems and older, more degenerative cases for gluteal, and the review did not separate outcomes for them or examine procedure details such as needle gauge. Because the recommendations could not be pooled, the phased framework the authors propose is their synthesis of what was written, not a tested protocol.

The article text supplied contains no funding statement and no conflict of interest declaration.

Do not read this as evidence that needle tenotomy, ultrasonic debridement or the rehabilitation attached to them works. The review pooled no outcomes, compared no protocols and made no formal quality assessment, so it describes what has been written down in the literature rather than which approach helps patients.