Percutaneous vertebroplasty for osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture.

CONCLUSIONS: We found high- to moderate-quality evidence that vertebroplasty has little clinical benefit in terms of pain for treating acute or subacute osteoporotic vertebral fractures in routine practice when compared with a sham procedure. Results were consistent across the studies irrespective of the average duration of pain.Sensitivity analyses confirmed that open trials comparing vertebroplasty with usual care are likely to have overestimated any benefit of vertebroplasty. Correcting for these biases would likely drive any benefits observed with vertebroplasty towards the null, in keeping with findings from the placebo-controlled trials.Numerous serious adverse events have been observed following vertebroplasty. However due to the small number of events, we cannot be certain about whether or not vertebroplasty results in a clinically important increased risk of new symptomatic vertebral fractures and/or other serious adverse events. Patients should be informed about both the high- to moderate-quality evidence that shows no important benefit of vertebroplasty and its potential for harm. PMID: 30399208 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Cochrane Database Syst Rev Source Type: research