Systematic review of the traditional medicine-based clinical trials for osteoarthritis

De Silva R.H.S.K.1, Perera P.K.2 and Jayasinghe S.3

Abstract

There are uprising trends to use traditional medicinal interventions in treating chronic diseases such as osteoarthritis. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review the scientific literature on different Traditional Medicine interventions for osteoarthritis. This systematic review was conducted by searching PubMed, Scopus and Science for published studies reporting the Traditional Medicine treatment methods for osteoarthritis from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2020. The following keywords were searched: “Traditional Medicine Treatment” and “Osteoarthritis”. The study followed the standard PRISMA method to systematically review the selected literature and adhere to the PICO format. Data were analyzed for the Traditional Medicine and country with trial registration, details of trials: randomization and blinding, phases, testing hypothesis and placebo control, trial design, number of arms, and trial outcomes. Traditional Chinese medicine interventions were recorded as the highest, 84% of research studies have clinical trial registration. 42% of research studies followed simple randomization methods and 42% of research studies followed the doubled-blind method. 32% of research studies were placebo–controlled and 60% of research studies were recorded as two-arm studies. In 26% of research studies sample size calculations were not available and 72% of the studies calculated the sample size based on previous studies of 30 to 80 years old participants. 64% of research studies used the American College of Rheumatology Criteria and  64% of research studies outcome measures were done by the WOMAC scale. 92% of research studies showed evaluation as a single intervention. 34% of clinical trials were conducted for nonpharmacological therapies. However, limited Traditional Medicine treatment clinical trials were conducted to support its application for osteoarthritis. Therefore, it is recommended to conduct research in the future by adopting modern parameters with standard designs intervening in treatment protocol trials considering various aspects of prevention and treatment of osteoarthritis.