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Review
. 2019 Jul 30:12:2391-2401.
doi: 10.2147/JPR.S209610. eCollection 2019.

Mesotherapy in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain in rehabilitation: the state of the art

T Paolucci  1 , R G Bellomo  2 , M A Centra  1 , N Giannandrea  1 , L Pezzi  1 , R Saggini  1
Affiliations
Review

Mesotherapy in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain in rehabilitation: the state of the art

T Paolucci et al. J Pain Res. .

Abstract

Background: Mesotherapy can be included as an ancillary treatment in the management of localized pain in rehabilitation, but there are no definitive treatment protocols for this approach.

Objectives: The purpose of this review was to examine new indications for more standard protocols of mesotherapy in rehabilitation.

Materials and methods: This systematic review was performed using the following resources: PubMed, Cochrane, PEDro, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The following algorithm was developed, based on the PICO acronym, to evaluate the effects of mesotherapy, with pain as the primary outcome (MESH terms): [mesotherapy AND pain], [mesotherapy AND musculoskeletal], [mesotherapy AND musculoskeletal disorder], [intradermal therapy AND pain], and [intradermal therapy AND musculoskeletal disorder].

Results: Seven articles (N=7) satisfied the inclusion criteria and were considered in the review: two of them treated osteoarthritis of the knee (3 sessions) and pes anserine (9 sessions) emphasizing a good efficacy of mesotherapy. Five studies analyzed spine diseases (specifically, two was about chronic and nonspecific neck pain, two about acute low back pain and one about chronic spinal pain): the results of mesotherapy treatment are encouraging both for the resolution of acute and chronic musculoskeletal vertebral pain from one to five sessions.

Conclusion: Mesotherapy showed a good effect to reduce acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain and, also, it is a well-tolerated treatment. Nonetheless future randomized controlled trials should be desirable for more uniform treatment protocols.

Keywords: intradermal injection; mesotherapy; musculoskeletal; pain; rehabilitation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of study identification and selection. Abbreviation: RCT, randomized controlled trial.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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