The effectiveness of surgical vs conservative interventions on pain and function in patients with shoulder impingement syndrome. A systematic review and meta-analysis

Authors

G Nazari
JC MacDermid
D Bryant
GS Athwal

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Journal

PLOS ONE

Volume

14

Issue

5

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.1371/journal.pone.0216961

Abstract

Objective To assess the effectiveness of surgical vs conservative interventions on pain and function in patients with subacromial impingement syndrome. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Setting Clinical setting. Participants Patients 18 years and older with subacromial impingement syndrome. Intervention/Comparison Surgical intervention plus postoperative physiotherapy / placebo surgery plus physiotherapy or physiotherapy only. Main outcome measures Pain and function. Results 11 RCTs (n = 919) were included. The pooled results displayed no statistically or clinically different between surgery plus physiotherapy vs physiotherapy alone on pain levels at 3-, 6-months, 5- and 10 years follow up (moderate quality, 3 RCTs, 300 patients, WMD -0.39, 95% CI: -1.02 to 0.23, p = 0.22; moderate quality, 3 RCTs, 310 patients, WMD -0.36, 95% CI: -1.02 to 0.29, p = 0.27; low quality, 1 RCT, 109 patients, WMD -0.30, 95% CI: -1.54 to 0.94, p = 0.64; low quality, 1 RCT, 90 patients, WMD -1.00, 95% CI: -0.24 to 2.24, p = 0.11) respectively. Similarly, the pooled results were not statistically or clinically different between groups for function at 3-, 6-month and 1-year follow ups (very low quality, 2 RCTs, 184 patients, SMD 0.11, 95% CI: -0.57 to 0.79, p = 0.75; moderate quality, 3 RCTs, 310 patients, SMD 0.15, 95% CI: -0.14 to 0.43, p = 0.31; very low quality, 2 RCTs, 197 patients, SMD 0.11, 95% CI: -0.46 to 0.69, p = 0.70) respectively. Conclusion The effects of surgery plus physiotherapy compared to physiotherapy alone on improving pain and function are too small to be clinically important at 3-, 6-months, 1-, 2-, 5- and >= 10-years follow up.

Notes

©2019 Nazariet al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,provided the original author and source are credited.

This article was originally published at:

Nazari G, MacDermid JC, Bryant D, Athwal GS (2019) The effectiveness of surgical vs conservative interventions on pain and function in patients with shoulder impingement syndrome. A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS ONE 14(5): e0216961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216961

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