The clinical efficacy of vertebroplasty on osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture: a meta-analysis.

We investigated the clinical efficacy of vertebroplasty (VP) for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (OVCF). We searched the online databases such as MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBSCO, Springer, Ovid and Cochrane library citations up to May 2012 and 5 eligible studies were included in this study. The meta-analysis was conducted using software RevMan 5.0. For the continuous data, the weighted mean difference (WMD) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated and the odds ratio (OR) and the corresponding 95% CI were calculated for the dichotomous data. The results demonstrated that the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score of patients treated with VP was significantly lower than that treated with traditional treatment at each time point (one week: WMD = -2.55, 95% CI, -3.08 to -2.02, P < 0.0001; 12 weeks: WMD = -0.90, 95% CI, -1.22 to -0.57, P < 0.0001; 24 weeks: WMD = -1.75, 95% CI, -2.30 to -1.19, P < 0.0001; 48 weeks: WMD = -1.75, 95% CI, -2.30 to -1.19, P < 0.001). For The incidence of adjacent vertebral fracture, the overall estimate (OR = 2.06, 95% CI: 0.26 to 16.29, P = 0.50) indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between VP and traditional treatment. In conclusion, the OVCF patients treated by VP had statistically significant improvements in pain relief compared with the traditional treatment and there was the similar incidence of adjacent vertebral fracture between the patients treated by VP and traditional treatment.