Trigger point injection therapies for chronic myofascial neck and back pain: A systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: To assess the comparative effectiveness and harms of trigger point injections (TPI) for myofascial neck and back pain. Methods: Electronic literature databases were searched to identify articles pertaining to TPI for chronic myofascial neck and back pain. Searches were done from database start dates up to April 2020. Inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trials, cohorts, and case control studies. Pain, functional outcomes, and harms were extracted. Outcome time points were divided into short term (7 days to <6 weeks), intermediate term (6 weeks to < 3 months), long term (3 months to < 6 months), and longest term (>6 months). Quality assessment was done using the Cochrane Back Review Group (CBRG) checklist for RCTs, and the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale for cohort and case control studies. Results: 14 studies met inclusion criteria. Six studies compared TPI of Botulinum toxin A (five with Onabutulinum toxin A, and one with Abobotulinum toxin A) with normal saline (NS). Two of the Onabotulinum toxin A studies showed greater pain improvement in the Onabotulinum toxin A group at short, intermediate, compared with NS. The Abobotulinum study showed pain improvement at short, intermediate, and long terms. Of note Onabotulinum toxin A was associated with improved anxiety and depression in two studies. Two studies compared Onabotulinum toxin A to local anesthetic, one to methylprednisolone, and one to dry needling (DN), all of which showed no difference. One study compared Ozone to Lidocaine and DN, and it showed no difference. Two studies compared sterile water to NS; they both found no difference in pain outcomes at the short term time point. However one of these two studies showed improved pain at intermediate, long, and longest terms in the sterile water group. Tropisetron showed no difference vs. NS. Adverse effects were mostly reported for Onabotulinum toxin A and Abobotulinum toxin A. Conclusion: Given the mixed results, we are unable to conclude whether an injectate composition is superior to another, or make recommendations in that regard. Further studies will help elucidate the ideal injectate composition and parameters.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.032 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".