Comparison of Immediate Effect of High-Power Pain Threshold Ultrasound and Deep Transverse Friction Massage on Active Myofascial Trigger Points

Introduction: the study was conducted to compare the immediate effect of high-power pain threshold ultrasound (hpptus) and deep transverse friction massage (dtfm) as a traditional technique on the treatment of upper trapezius active myofascial trigger points in male patients with mechanical neck pain. materials and methods: in this parallel single-blind randomized clinical trial study, 60 men with mechanical neck pain (mean age: 30.57±6.19 years) who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were randomly assigned to hpptus and dtfm as the control group. a visual analog scale (vas), pain pressure threshold (ppt), and range of motion (rom) of cervical lateral flexion (clf) were assessed before and after treatment. results: analysis of pre- and post-treatment findings showed that the vas (p<0.01), ppt (p<0.01), and rom of clf (p<0.01) improved significantly in both groups while rom of clf increased significantly more in the hpptus group. an indirect correlation was found between the pre-treatment rom of clf and rom of clf improvement in both groups. a significant indirect correlation was observed between pre-treatment vas and rom of clf improvement in the hpptus group. in the dtfm group a significant indirect correlation was found between pre-treatment rom of clf and vas improvement. conclusion: the results showed that hpptus can be used as an effective treatment for active trigger points (tp). it seems that this method is more effective than deep transverse friction massage.