Effects of calcitonin on lumbar spinal stenosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

To investigate whether calcitonin can improve walking distance (WD) and visual analog pain scale (VAS) in patients who suffer lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).

METHODS

We performed a search on CENTRAL, PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases up to July 2014; we finally found 19 original articles, of which only 6 were in full compliance with the RCT criteria. These full articles were carefully reviewed independent and in blinded way by two previously capacitated reviewers for the objective to extract data and score a quality of these articles by the criteria of Cochrane Handbook (5.1.0).

RESULTS

We accepted 6 studies with 232 participants. There is no evidence show calcitonin is better than placebo or paracetamol regardless of mode of administration.

CONCLUSIONS

This meta-analysis suggest that calcitonin provide no significant improvement in pain symptoms or walking distance in LSS patients.