To assess the benefit of intra-articular injection of Botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) for chronic refractory joint pain regardless of joint or pathology.
The search was performed on Ovid MEDLINE(R) In-Process and Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE(R), Ovid EMBASE, Web of Science, and Scopus inception through Week 12, 2016. Trial selection: Clinical randomized controlled trials that evaluated BoNT-A intra-articular injection in patients with refractory joint pain were included.
Two independent reviewers conducted data extraction.
A total of 6 out of 284 records were included. The analysis indicated that a statistically significant decreased pain score was found in BoNT-A therapy group than control group with WMD=1.10 (95% CI: 0.35 to 1.85; P<0.001; I
As compared with conventional therapy, BoNT-A intra-articular injection have beneficial effects with improved pain score and WOMAC score in adult patients with refractory joint pain.