Journal of Pain Research (Jul 2019)

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

  • Paolucci T,
  • Bellomo RG,
  • Centra MA,
  • Giannandrea N,
  • Pezzi L,
  • Saggini R

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 12
pp. 2391 – 2401

Abstract

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T Paolucci,1 RG Bellomo,2 MA Centra,1 N Giannandrea,1 L Pezzi,1 R Saggini11University G.d’Annunzio Chieti, Department of Medical and Oral Sciences and Biotechnologies, Chieti-Pescara, Italy; 2University of Study of Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Urbino, ItalyBackground: 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: mesotherapy, intradermal injection, rehabilitation, pain, musculoskeletal

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