Effects of therapeutic ultrasound in patients with knee osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Therapeutic ultrasound (US) is a treatment for knee osteoarthritis (KOA), but its efficacy and safety are unclear. The objective of this study is to quantify the effect of US on pain relief and function recovery in KOA, and to analyze the US treatment duration and parameters on treatment outcome. Methods We searched PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, Cochrane databases and ClinicalTrials.gov databases up to 7 April 2023. RCTs that compared the efficacy of therapeutic US with the control in KOA were included in the study, and the methodological quality of the trials was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Results Twenty-one RCTs (1315 patients) were included. US had a positive effect on visual analog scale (VAS) (SMD = -0.64, 95% CI [-0.88, -0.40], I 2 = 71%) and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities (WOMAC) total scale (SMD = -0.45, 95% CI [-0.69, -0.20]; I 2 = 67%) . Pulsed US with an intensity ≤2.5 W/cm 2 reduced visual analog scale (VAS), and differed in sessions (24 sessions (SMD = -0.80, 95% CI [-1.07, -0.53], I 2 = 0%) vs 10 sessions (SMD = -0.71, 95% CI [-1.09, -0.33], I 2 = 68%)). For pulsed US, a duration of treatment of 4-8 weeks (SMD = -0.69, 95% CI [-1.13, -0.25], I 2 = 73%) appeared to be superior to ≤4 weeks (SMD = -0.77, 95% CI [-1.04, -0.49], I 2 = 0%) for reducing visual analog scale (VAS). No US treatment-related adverse events were reported. Conclusion Therapeutic US may be a safe and effective treatment for patients with KOA. The mode, intensity, frequency, and duration of US may affect the effectiveness of pain relief. Pulsed US with an intensity ≤ 2.5 W/cm 2 , 24 sessions, and a treatment duration of ≤ 4 weeks appears to have better pain relief.
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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 | 0.012 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.021 | 0.028 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 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".