EFFECTIVENESS OF PHONOPHORESIS VERSUS THERAPEUTIC ULTRASOUND FOR KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS

Abstract

AbstractObjectivesTo compare the effectiveness of phonophoresis (PH) and conventional therapeutic ultrasound (US) on the functional and pain outcomes of patients with knee osteoarthritis.MethodsWe conducted an electronic search through PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science (WOS), and Scopus databases. We screened the retrieved articles to include only English full-text randomized controlled trials that examined the effect of phonophoresis versus conventional therapeutic ultrasound on patients with knee osteoarthritis. Two reviewers screened, extracted the data, and independently assessed the quality of the included articles.ResultsA total of five randomized controlled trials met our inclusion criteria out of 267 studies screened. Our results showed no statistically significant differences between the PH and US groups (1), (2), (3),(4), and (5). The PH group demonstrated more significant effects than the UT group in reducing VAS pain scores (P=0.009) and improving WOMAC scores, although this did not reach the level of significance (P=0.143) (5). In the long term, PH therapy was found to be superior to US in improving painless walking duration and distance VAS scores (p=0.034, 0.017) respectively, as well as walking and resting walking VAS scores (p=0.03, 0.007) respectively, which were found to be permanent (3).ConclusionsBoth therapies improve pain and function. However, we suggest conducting more high-quality trials with larger sample sizes and do not recommend the use of these therapies in clinical practice due to limitations in gender selection and high risk of bias.Declaration of Interest(b) declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research reported:I declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.