SynthesisRMD open2025
Efficacy and safety of non-pharmacological, pharmacological and surgical treatments for hand osteoarthritis in 2024: a systematic review.
Synthesis in RMD open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The short-term efficacy of heat therapy for osteoarthritis of the hands: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of rehabilitation medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Changing Habits With the Happy Hands App: Qualitative Focus Group Study of a Hand Osteoarthritis Self-Management Intervention.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Trial
- Effects of orally administered cetylated fatty acids on symptoms and functional capacity in patients with knee osteoarthritis: results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2025Trial
- The stability of pain phenotypes in people with hand osteoarthritis - results from the NOR-HAND study.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2026Article
- Global clinical trial landscape of stem cell-based therapies for osteoarthritis: trends and translational implications.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Article
- A firm grip on hand OA: 20 years of progress and prospects.Nature reviews. Rheumatology · 2025Article
- Article
- Hand Osteoarthritis: Molecular Mechanisms, Randomized Controlled Trials, and the Future of Targeted Treatment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Development of quality indicators for hand osteoarthritis care - Results from an European consensus study.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2025Article
- Nanomaterial-Based Drug Delivery Systems Targeting Functional Cells for Osteoarthritis Treatment: Mechanisms, Challenges and Future Prospects.International journal of nanomedicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWe aimed to update the 2018 systematic literature review on the efficacy and safety of treatments for hand osteoarthritis (OA), which was based on 126 studies.
methodsWe performed a systematic literature search on randomised controlled trials from June 2017 up to 31 December 2023. Risk of bias was assessed using the RoB2 tool. Meta-analyses of previous and new studies regarding the efficacy for pain, function, grip strength and OMERACT/OARSI responders were performed. Certainty of evidence was judged using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) tool.
resultsSixty-five new studies were included. For non-pharmacological interventions, there was low-certainty evidence for a small long-term effect of hand exercises and a moderate long-term effect of thumb orthoses for pain, and moderate-certainty evidence that assistive devices had a moderate long-term effect on function. Concerning pharmacological interventions, there was low-certainty evidence for a moderate short-term effect of oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) on pain, high- and moderate-certainty evidence for a small short-term effect of topical NSAIDs and oral glucocorticoids on function, respectively, and low-certainty evidence that oral glucocorticoids had a small short-term effect on function. Further, there was low-certainty evidence that methotrexate had a small long-term effect on pain. The heterogeneity of studies did not allow for any meta-analyses on surgery.
conclusionThe results largely support current treatment recommendations. However, there is a lack of interventions that efficiently improve grip strength, and the evidence for most current treatments is still limited. To better understand action mechanism of different treatments, future trials should include hand OA subtyping and be powered for subgroup analyses.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.