Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound attracts much attention due to its low-cost, non-invasive, non-infection, convenient treatment, and no adverse reactions to promote bone fracture healing.
OBJECTIVE: To review the effect of low-intensity pulsed ultrasound on bone fracture healing by mechanism, animal experiments, and clinical application so as to provide new ideas and theoretical evidences for promoting bone fracture healing.
METHODS: The relevant articles in Pubmed database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.gov/Pubmed) (1989/2009), Vip database (www.cqvip.com) (1981/2009) and Wanfang database (www.wanfangdata.com.cn) (1981/2009) were retrieved. The index words were “LIPUS, fracture” in both English and Chinese. Inclusion criteria: articles which were closely related to the low-intensity pulsed ultrasound or ultrasound treatment of bone fracture healing and recently published or in authoritative magazines at the same field. The duplicated articles were excluded. The retrieval articles included reviews, animal experiments, and clinical experiments. Totally 60 literatures were primarily selected, 35 documents of which were involved for analysis according to inclusion criteria. 
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound characterized by low cost, safety, environmental protection, non-invasive, non-infection, simple operation, wide application and less complications for treating bone fracture healing. Clinical experiments and clinical application have confirmed that low-intensity pulsed ultrasound was an effective method to promote bone fracture healing, characterizing by low frequency and low intensity. Bone fracture healing treated with low-intensity pulsed ultrasound involved in not only physics, but also medical and other disciplines. With the research progress of ultrasound, organic complexity, and ethics, the mechanism, parameters of low-intensity pulsed ultrasound and the combination of all parameters need to be further studied.