guideline
The WHO has just released guidelines for non-surgical management of chronic primary low back pain (CPLBP). The guideline considers 37 types of interventions across five intervention classes. With the guidelines, WHO recommends non-surgical interventions to help people experiencing CPLBP. These interventions include:
- education programs that support knowledge and self-care strategies;
- exercise programs;
- some physical therapies, such as spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) and massage;
- psychological therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy; and
- medicines, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines.
The guidelines also outline 14 interventions that are not recommended for most people in most contexts. These interventions should not be routinely offered, as WHO evaluation of the available evidence indicate that potential harms likely outweigh the benefits. WHO advises against interventions such as:
- lumbar braces, belts and/or supports;
- some physical therapies, such as traction;
- and some medicines, such as opioid pain killers, which can be associated with overdose and dependence.
As you probably guessed, I am particularly intrigued by the WHO’s positive recommendation for SMT. Here is what the guideline tells us about this specific topic:
Considering all adults, the guideline development group (GDG) judged overall net benefits [of spinal manipulation] across outcomes to range from trivial to moderate while, for older people the benefit was judged to be largely uncertain given the few trials and uncertainty of evidence in this group. Overall, harms were judged to be trivial to small for all adults and uncertain for older people due to lack of evidence.
The GDG commented that while rare, serious adverse events might occur with SMT, particularly in older people (e.g. fragility fracture in people with bone loss), and highlighted that appropriate training and clinical vigilance concerning potential harms are important. The GDG also acknowledged that rare serious adverse events were unlikely to be detected in trials. Some GDG members considered that the balance of benefits to harms favoured SMT due to small to moderate benefits while others felt the balance did not favour SMT, mainly due to the very low certainty evidence for some of the observed benefits.
The GDG judged the overall certainty of evidence to be very low for all adults, and very low for older people, consistent with the systematic review team’s assessment. The GDG judged that there was likely to be important uncertainty or variability among people with CPLBP with respect to their values and preferences, with GDG members noting that some people might prefer manual
therapies such as SMT, due to its “hands-on” nature, while others might not prefer such an approach.
Based on their experience and the evidence presented from the included trials which offered an average of eight treatment sessions, the GDG judged that SMT was likely to be associated with moderate costs, while acknowledging that such costs and the equity impacts from out-of-pocket costs would vary by setting.
The GDG noted that the cost-effectiveness of SMT might not be favourable when patients do not experience symptom improvements early in the treatment course. The GDG judged that in most settings, delivery of SMT would be feasible, although its acceptability was likely to vary across
health workers and people with CPLBP.
The GDG reached a consensus conditional recommendation in favour of SMT on the basis of small to moderate benefits for critical outcomes, predominantly pain and function, and the likelihood of rare adverse events.
The GDG concluded by consensus that the likely short-term benefits outweighed potential harms, and that delivery was feasible in most settings. The conditional nature of the recommendation was informed by variability in acceptability, possible moderate costs, and concerns that equity might be negatively impacted in a user-pays model of financing.
___________________________
This clearly is not a glowing endorsement or recommendation of SMT. Yet, in my view, it is still too positive. In particular, the assessment of harm is woefully deficient. Looking into the finer details, we find how the GDG assessed harms:
WHO commissioned quantitative systematic evidence syntheses of randomized controlled
trials (RCTs) to evaluate the benefits and harms (as reported in included trials) of each of the
prioritized interventions compared with no care (including trials where the effect of an
intervention could be isolated), placebo or usual care for each of the critical outcomes (refer to Table 2 for the PICO criteria for selecting evidence). Research designs other than RCTs
were not considered.
That explains a lot!
It is not possible to establish the harms of SMT (or any other therapy) on the basis of just a few RCTs, particularly because the RCTs in question often fail to report adverse events. I can be sure of this phenomenon because we investigated it via a systematic review:
Objective: To systematically review the reporting of adverse effects in clinical trials of chiropractic manipulation.
Data sources: Six databases were searched from 2000 to July 2011. Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) were considered, if they tested chiropractic manipulations against any control intervention in human patients suffering from any type of clinical condition. The selection of studies, data extraction, and validation were performed independently by two reviewers.
Results: Sixty RCTs had been published. Twenty-nine RCTs did not mention adverse effects at all. Sixteen RCTs reported that no adverse effects had occurred. Complete information on incidence, severity, duration, frequency and method of reporting of adverse effects was included in only one RCT. Conflicts of interests were not mentioned by the majority of authors.
Conclusions: Adverse effects are poorly reported in recent RCTs of chiropractic manipulations.
The GDG did not cite our review (or any other of our articles on the subject) but, as it was published in a very well-known journal, they must have been aware of it. I am afraid that this wilfull ignorance caused the WHO guideline to underestimate the level of harm of SMT. As there is no post-marketing surveillance system for SMT, a realistic assessment of the harm is far from easy and needs to include a carefully weighted summary of all the published reports (such as this one).
The GDG seems to have been aware of (some of) these problems, yet they ignored them and simply assumed (based on wishful thinking?) that the harms were small or trivial.
Why?
Even the most cursory look at the composition of the GDG, begs the question: could it be that the GDG was highjacked by chiropractors and other experts biased towards SMT?
The more I think of it, the more I feel that this might actually be the case. One committee even listed an expert, Scott Haldeman, as a ‘neurologist’ without disclosing that he foremost is a chiropractor who, for most of his professional life, has promoted SMT in one form or another.
Altogether, the WHO guideline is, in my view, a shameful example of pro-chiropractic bias and an unethical disservice to evidence-based medicine.
If you assumed that the best management of a child by chiropractors is not to treat this patient and refer to a proper doctor, think again. This paper was aimed at building upon existing recommendations on best practices for chiropractic management of children by conducting a formal consensus process and best evidence synthesis. Its authors composed a best practice guide based on recommendations from current best available evidence and formal consensus of a panel of experienced practitioners, consumers, and experts for chiropractic management of pediatric patients. They thus syntheized results of a literature search to inform the development of recommendations from a multidisciplinary steering committee, including experts in pediatrics, followed by a formal Delphi panel consensus process.
The consensus process was conducted June to August 2022. All 60 panelists completed the process and reached at least 80% consensus on all recommendations after three Delphi rounds. Recommendations for best practices for chiropractic care for children addressed the following aspects of the clinical encounter:
- patient communication, including informed consent;
- appropriate clinical history, including health habits;
- appropriate physical examination procedures;
- red flags/contraindications to chiropractic care and/or spinal manipulation;
- aspects of chiropractic management of pediatric patients, including infants;
- modifications of spinal manipulation and other manual procedures for pediatric patients;
- appropriate referral and comanagement;
- appropriate health promotion and disease prevention practices.
The authors concluded that this set of recommendations represents a general framework for an evidence-informed and reasonable approach to the management of pediatric patients by chiropractors.
Whenever I read the term ‘evidence-informed’ I need to giggle. Why not evidence-based? Evidence-informed might mean that chiros are informed that their treatments are useless or even dangerous for children … but, on reflection and taking their own need for earning a living, they subsequently ignore these facts. And sure enough, the authors of the present paper do mention that a Cochrane review concluded that spinal manipulation is not recommended for children under 12, for a number of conditions, or for general wellness … only to then go on and ignore the very fact.
In doing so, the authors issue a string of self-evident platitudes which occasionally border on the irresponsible. For instance, under the heading of ‘primary prevention’, vaccinations are mentioned as the very last item with the following words:
If parents ask for advice or information about childhood vaccinations, explain that they have the right to make their own health decisions. They should be adequately informed about the benefits and risks to both their child and the broader community associated with these decisions. Consider referral to a health professional whose scope of practice includes vaccinations to address patient questions or concerns.
What that really means in practice, I fear, might be summarized like this: If parents ask for advice or information about childhood vaccinations, explain that they are dangerous, and that even D. D. Palmer recognized as early as 1894 that vaccination is ‘…the monstrous delusion … fastened on us by the medical profession, enforced by the state boards, and supported by the mass of unthinking people …’
Altogether, the ‘Clinical Practice Guideline for Best Practice Management of Pediatric Patients by Chiropractors’ is a thoroughly disreputable document. It was constructed in the way all charlatans tend to construct their consensus documents:
- convene a few people who are all in favour of a certain motion,
- discuss the motion,
- agree with it,
- write up the process
- publish your paper in a third class journal,
- boast that there is a consensus,
- stress that the motion must thereefore be ethical, correct and valuable.
Do chiropractors know that, using this methodology, the ‘flat earth society’ can easily pass a consensus that the earth is indeed flat?
I am sure they do!
Practitioners of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) often argue against treating back problems with drugs. They also frequently defend their own therapy by claiming it is backed by published guidelines. So, what should we think about guidelines for the management of back pain?
This systematic review was aimed at:
- systematically evaluating the literature for clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) that included the pharmaceutical management of non-specific LBP;
- appraising the methodological quality of the CPGs;
- qualitatively synthesizing the recommendations with the intent to inform non-prescribing providers who manage LBP.
The authors searched PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Review, Index to Chiropractic Literature, AMED, CINAHL, and PEDro to identify CPGs that described the management of mechanical LBP in the prior five years. Two investigators independently screened titles and abstracts and potentially relevant full text were considered for eligibility. Four investigators independently applied the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument for critical appraisal. Data were extracted for pharmaceutical intervention, the strength of recommendation, and appropriateness for the duration of LBP.
Only nine guidelines with global representation met the eligibility criteria. These CPGs addressed pharmacological treatments with or without non-pharmacological treatments. All CPGs focused on the management of acute, chronic, or unspecified duration of LBP. The mean overall AGREE II score was 89.3% (SD 3.5%). The lowest domain mean score was for applicability, 80.4% (SD 5.2%), and the highest was Scope and Purpose, 94.0% (SD 2.4%). There were ten classifications of medications described in the included CPGs: acetaminophen, antibiotics, anticonvulsants, antidepressants, benzodiazepines, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), opioids, oral corticosteroids, skeletal muscle relaxants (SMRs), and atypical opioids.
The authors concluded that nine CPGs, included ten medication classes for the management of LBP. NSAIDs were the most frequently recommended medication for the treatment of both acute and chronic LBP as a first line pharmacological therapy. Acetaminophen and SMRs were inconsistently recommended for acute LBP. Meanwhile, with less consensus among CPGs, acetaminophen and antidepressants were proposed as second-choice therapies for chronic LBP. There was significant heterogeneity of recommendations within many medication classes, although oral corticosteroids, benzodiazepines, anticonvulsants, and antibiotics were not recommended by any CPGs for acute or chronic LBP.
Oddly, this review was published by chiros in a chiro journal. The authors mention that nearly all guidelines the included CPGs recommended non-pharmacological treatments for non-specific LBP, however it was not always delineated as to precede or be used in conjunction with pharmacological intervention.
I find the review interesting because I think it suggests that:
- CPGs are not the most reliable form of evidence. Their guidance depends on how up-to-date they are and on the identity and purpose of the authors.
- Guidelines are therefore often contradictory.
- Back pain is a symptom for which currently no optimal treatment exists.
- The most reliable evidence will rarely come from CPGs but from rigorous, up-to-date, independent systematic reviews such as those from the Cochrane Collaboration.
So, the next time chiropractors osteopaths, acupuncturists, etc. tell you “BUT MY THERAPY IS RECOMMENDED IN THE GUIDELINES”, please take it with a pinch of salt.
Acupuncture is a veritable panacea; it cures everything! At least this is what many of its advocates want us to believe. Does it also have a role in supportive cancer care?
Let’s find out.
This systematic review evaluated the effects of acupuncture in women with breast cancer (BC), focusing on patient-reported outcomes (PROs).
A comprehensive literature search was carried out for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) reporting PROs in BC patients with treatment-related symptoms after undergoing acupuncture for at least four weeks. Literature screening, data extraction, and risk bias assessment were independently carried out by two researchers. The authors stated that they followed the ‘Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses’ (PRISMA) guidelines.
Out of the 2, 524 identified studies, 29 studies representing 33 articles were included in this meta-analysis. The RCTs employed various acupuncture techniques with a needle, such as hand-acupuncture and electroacupuncture. Sham/placebo acupuncture, pharmacotherapy, no intervention, or usual care were the control interventions. About half of the studies lacked adequate blinding.
At the end of treatment (EOT), the acupuncture patients’ quality of life (QoL) was measured by the QLQ-C30 QoL subscale, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Endocrine Symptoms (FACT-ES), the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–General/Breast (FACT-G/B), and the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL), which depicted a significant improvement. The use of acupuncture in BC patients lead to a considerable reduction in the scores of all subscales of the Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF) and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) measuring pain. Moreover, patients treated with acupuncture were more likely to experience improvements in hot flashes scores, fatigue, sleep disturbance, and anxiety compared to those in the control group, while the improvements in depression were comparable across both groups. Long-term follow-up results were similar to the EOT results. Eleven RCTs did not report any information on adverse effects.
The authors concluded that current evidence suggests that acupuncture might improve BC treatment-related symptoms measured with PROs including QoL, pain, fatigue, hot flashes, sleep disturbance and anxiety. However, a number of included studies report limited amounts of certain subgroup settings, thus more rigorous, well-designed and larger RCTs are needed to confirm our results.
This review looks rigorous on the surface but has many weaknesses if one digs only a little deeper. To start with, it has no precise research question: is any type of acupuncture better than any type of control? This is not a research question that anyone can answer with just a few studies of mostly poor quality. The authors claim to follow the PRISMA guidelines, yet (as a co-author of these guidelines) I can assure you that this is not true. Many of the included studies are small and lacked blinding. The results are confusing, contradictory and not clearly reported. Many trials fail to mention adverse effects and thus violate research ethics, etc., etc.
The conclusion that acupuncture might improve BC treatment-related symptoms could be true. But does this paper convince me that acupuncture DOES improve these symptoms?
No!
The new NICE draft guideline on acupuncture for chronic pain has been published several months ago, and we discussed it here. Now the final document entitled ‘Chronic pain (primary and secondary) in over 16s: assessment of all chronic pain and management of chronic primary pain‘ has been published on 7/4/2021. Like the draft, it includes quite a bit about acupuncture. Let me just quote three essential sections:
Recommendations: Acupuncture for chronic primary pain
Consider a single course of acupuncture or dry needling, within a traditional Chinese or Western acupuncture system, for people aged 16 years and over to manage chronic primary pain, but only if the course:
- is delivered in a community setting and
- is delivered by a band 7 (equivalent or lower) healthcare professional with appropriate training and
- is made up of no more than 5 hours of healthcare professional time (the number and length of sessions can be adapted within these boundaries) or
- is delivered by another healthcare professional with appropriate training and/or in another setting for equivalent or lower cost.
_____________________________
Many studies (27 in total) showed that acupuncture reduced pain and improved quality of life in the short term (up to 3 months) compared with usual care or sham acupuncture. There was not enough evidence to determine longer-term benefits. The committee acknowledged the difficulty in blinding for sham procedures, but agreed that the benefit compared with a sham procedure indicated a specific treatment effect of acupuncture. There was a wide variation among the studies in the type and intensity of the intervention used, and the studies were from many different countries. The committee agreed that the type of acupuncture or dry needling should depend on the individual needs of the person with pain.
Two economic evaluations (1 in the UK) showed that acupuncture offered a good balance of benefits and costs for people with chronic neck pain. However, both studies had limitations; a notable limitation being that the costs of acupuncture seemed low. Threshold analysis based on these studies indicated the maximum number of hours of a band 6 and 7 healthcare professional’s time that would make the intervention cost effective.
An original economic model was developed for this guideline, which compared acupuncture with no acupuncture. The model used data from studies with usual care comparisons, not comparisons with sham acupuncture, because the committee agreed that a usual care comparison in an economic model better reflects the real world benefit of the intervention. The model showed that acupuncture was likely to be cost effective. The committee considered the results to be robust, and agreed that the studies used in the model were representative of the whole evidence review. Acupuncture remained cost effective when the assumed benefits and costs were varied (sensitivity analysis).
Overall, the committee agreed that there was a large evidence base showing acupuncture to be clinically effective in the short term (3 months); the original economic modelling also showed it is likely to be cost effective. However, they were uncertain whether the beneficial effects would be sustained long term and were aware of the high resource impact of implementation. Taking these factors into account, the committee made a recommendation to consider acupuncture or dry needling for chronic primary pain, caveated by the factors likely to make the intervention cost effective. These were: only if delivered in the community, and with a maximum of 5 treatment hours (based on the average resource use in the trials in the model and on the threshold analysis), and from a band 7 (equivalent cost or lower) healthcare professional (based on the threshold analysis). It was agreed there may be different ways of delivering the service that enable acupuncture to be delivered for the same costs, which would equally be appropriate. The committee agreed that discontinuing before this total amount of course time would be an option if the person finds that the first few sessions are not effective.
_______________________________
Acupuncture versus sham acupuncture
Pain reduction
Very low quality evidence from 13 studies with 1230 participants showed a clinically important benefit of acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture at ≤3 months. Low quality evidence from 2 studies with 159 participants showed a clinically important benefit of acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture at ≤3 months.
Low quality evidence from 4 studies with 376 participants showed no clinically important difference between acupuncture and sham acupuncture at >3 months. Moderate quality evidence from 2 studies with 159 participants showed a clinically important benefit of acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture at >3 months. Low quality evidence from 1 study with 61 participants showed no clinically important difference between acupuncture
and sham acupuncture at >3 months.
______________END OF QUOTES____________
I will leave this here without a comment for the moment and look forward to reading what you think about this.
As recently reported, the most thorough review of the subject showed that the evidence for acupuncture as a treatment for chronic pain is very weak. Yesterday, NICE published a draft report that seems to somewhat disagree with this conclusion (and today, this is being reported in most of the UK daily papers). The draft is now open to public consultation until 14 September 2020 and many of my readers might want to comment.
The draft report essentially suggests that people with chronic primary pain (CPP) should not get pain-medication of any type, but be offered supervised group exercise programmes, some types of psychological therapy, or acupuncture. While I understand that chronic pain should not be treated with long-term pain-medications – I did even learn this in medical school all those years ago – one might be puzzled by the mention of acupuncture.
But perhaps we need first ask, WHAT IS CPP? The NICE report informs us that CPP represents chronic pain as a condition in itself and which can’t be accounted for by another diagnosis, or where it is not the symptom of an underlying condition (this is known as chronic secondary pain). I find this definition most unsatisfactory. Pain is usually a symptom and not a disease. In many forms of what we now call CPP, an underlying disease does exist but might not yet be identifiable, I suspect.
The evidence on acupuncture considered for the draft NICE report included conditions like:
- neck pain,
- myofascial pain,
- radicular arm pain,
- shoulder pain,
- prostatitis pain,
- mechanical neck pain,
- vulvodynia.
I find it debatable whether these pain syndromes can be categorised to be without an underlying diagnosis. Moreover, I find it problematic to lump them together as though they were one big entity.
The NICE draft document is huge and far too big to be assessed in a blog like mine. As it is merely a draft, I also see little point in evaluating it or parts of in detail. Therefore, my comments are far from detailed, very brief and merely focussed on pain (the draft NICE report considers several further outcome measures).
There is a separate document for acupuncture, from which I copy what I consider the key evidence:
Acupuncture versus sham acupuncture
Pain reduction
Very low quality evidence from 13 studies with 1230 participants showed a clinically
important benefit of acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture at ≤3 months. Low quality
evidence from 2 studies with 159 participants showed a clinically important benefit of
acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture at ≤3 months.
Low quality evidence from 4 studies with 376 participants showed no clinically important
difference between acupuncture and sham acupuncture at >3 months. Moderate quality
evidence from 2 studies with 159 participants showed a clinically important benefit of
acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture at >3 months. Low quality evidence from 1
study with 61 participants showed no clinically important difference between acupuncture
and sham acupuncture at >3 months.
As acupuncture has all the features that make a perfect placebo (slightly invasive, mildly painful, exotic, involves touch, time and attention), I see little point in evaluating its efficacy through studies that make no attempt to control for placebo effects. This is why the sham-controlled studies are central to the question of acupuncture’s efficacy, no matter for what condition.
Reading the above evidence carefully, I fail to see how NICE can conclude that CPP patients should be offered acupuncture. I am sure that some readers will disagree and am looking forward to reading their comments.
The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) have just published new guidelines for chiropractors entitled ‘Guidelines for Disaster Service by Doctors of Chiropractic’. Let me show you a few short quotes from this remarkable document:
… Doctors of Chiropractic are uniquely qualified to serve in emergency situations in various capacities.
… their assessment and treatments can be performed in austere environments, on site or at staging areas providing rapid attention to the injury, accelerating healing and often decreasing or substituting the need for pharmaceutical intervention…
Through their education as primary care physicians, Doctors of Chiropractic have demonstrated competence in first aid and resuscitation skills and are able to assess, diagnose and triage so they may serve as first responders in the immediate care of victims at a disaster site…
During and after the disaster, the local Doctors of Chiropractic should interface with the state association and ACA to report on execution of action and outcome of the situation, make suggestions for response to future disasters and report any significant contacts made.
END OF QUOTES
Please allow me to make just 10 corrections and clarifications:
- Chiropractors are not medical doctors; to use the title in any medical context is misleading, to use it in the context of medical emergencies is quite simply reckless.
- Chiropractors are certainly not qualified to serve in emergency situations. This would require a totally different training, experience and set of skills.
- I am not aware of any good evidence that chiropractic can accelerate healing of any medical condition.
- I am also not aware that chiropractic might decrease or substitute the need for pharmaceutical interventions in emergency situations.
- Chiropractors are not primary care physicians.
- Chiropractors have not demonstrated competence in first aid and resuscitation skills.
- Chiropractors are not trained to diagnose the complex and often life-threatening conditions that occur in disaster situations.
- Chiropractors are not trained as first responders in disaster situations.
- Chiropractors are not qualified or trained to report on execution of action and outcome of disaster situation.
- Chiropractors are not qualified or trained to make suggestions for response to future disasters.
The new ACA guidelines are but a thinly disguised attempt to boost chiropractic. They have the potential to endanger lives. And they are an insult to those professionals who have trained hard to acquire the skills to respond to emergencies and disaster situations.
In other words, they are guidelines not for dealing with disasters, but for creating them.
This week, I find it hard to decide where to focus; with all the fuzz about ‘Homeopathy Awareness Week’ it is easy to forget that our friends, the chiros are celebrating Chiropractic Awareness Week (9-15 April). On this occasion, the British Chiropractic Association (BCA), for instance, want people to keep moving to make a positive impact on managing and preventing back and neck pain.
Good advice! In a recent post, I even have concluded that people should “walk (slowly and cautiously) to the office of their preferred therapist, have a little rest there (say hello to the staff perhaps) and then walk straight back home.” The reason for my advice is based on the fact that there is precious little evidence that the spinal manipulations of chiropractors make much difference plus some worrying indications that they may cause serious damage.
It seems to me that, by focussing their PR away from spinal manipulations and towards the many other things chiropractors sometimes do – they often call this ‘adjunctive therapies’ – there is a tacit admission here that the hallmark intervention of chiros (spinal manipulation) is of dubious value.
A recent article entitled ‘Spinal Manipulative Therapy and Other Conservative Treatments for Low Back Pain: A Guideline From the Canadian Chiropractic Guideline Initiative’ seems to confirm this impression. Its objective was to develop a clinical practice guideline on the management of acute and chronic low back pain (LBP) in adults. The specific aim was to develop a guideline to provide best practice recommendations on the initial assessment and monitoring of people with low back pain and address the use of spinal manipulation therapy (SMT) compared with other commonly used conservative treatments.
The topic areas were chosen based on an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality comparative effectiveness review, specific to spinal manipulation as a non-pharmacological intervention. The panel updated the search strategies in Medline and assessed admissible systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials. Evidence profiles were used to summarize judgments of the evidence quality and link recommendations to the supporting evidence. Using the Evidence to Decision Framework, the guideline panel determined the certainty of evidence and strength of the recommendations. Consensus was achieved using a modified Delphi technique. The guideline was peer reviewed by an 8-member multidisciplinary external committee.
For patients with acute (0-3 months) back pain, we suggest offering advice (posture, staying active), reassurance, education and self-management strategies in addition to SMT, usual medical care when deemed beneficial, or a combination of SMT and usual medical care to improve pain and disability. For patients with chronic (>3 months) back pain, we suggest offering advice and education, SMT or SMT as part of a multimodal therapy (exercise, myofascial therapy or usual medical care when deemed beneficial). For patients with chronic back-related leg pain, we suggest offering advice and education along with SMT and home exercise (positioning and stabilization exercises).
The authors concluded that a multimodal approach including SMT, other commonly used active interventions, self-management advice, and exercise is an effective treatment strategy for acute and chronic back pain, with or without leg pain.
I find this paper most interesting and revealing. Considering that it originates from the ‘Canadian Chiropractic Guideline Initiative’, it is remarkably shy about recommending SMT – after all their vision is “To enhance the health of Canadians by fostering excellence in chiropractic care.” They are thus not likely to be overly critical of the treatment chiropractors use most, i. e. SMT.
Perhaps this is also the reason why, in their conclusion, they seem to have rather a large blind spot, namely the risks of SMT. I have commented on this issue more often than I care to remember. Most recently, I posted this:
The reason why my stance, as expressed on this blog and elsewhere, is often critical about certain alternative therapies is thus obvious and transparent. For none of them (except for massage) is the risk/benefit balance positive. And for spinal manipulation, it even turns out to be negative. It goes almost without saying that responsible advice must be to avoid treatments for which the benefits do not demonstrably outweigh the risks.
HAPPY CHIROPRACTIC AWARENESS WEEK EVERYONE!
The media have (rightly) paid much attention to the three Lancet-articles on low back pain (LBP) which were published this week. LBP is such a common condition that its prevalence alone renders it an important subject for us all. One of the three papers covers the treatment and prevention of LBP. Specifically, it lists various therapies according to their effectiveness for both acute and persistent LBP. The authors of the article base their judgements mainly on published guidelines from Denmark, UK and the US; as these guidelines differ, they attempt a synthesis of the three.
Several alternative therapist organisations and individuals have consequently jumped on the LBP bandwagon and seem to feel encouraged by the attention given to the Lancet-papers to promote their treatments. Others have claimed that my often critical verdicts of alternative therapies for LBP are out of line with this evidence and asked ‘who should we believe the international team of experts writing in one of the best medical journals, or Edzard Ernst writing on his blog?’ They are trying to create a division where none exists,
The thing is that I am broadly in agreement with the evidence presented in Lancet-paper! But I also know that things are a bit more complex.
Below, I have copied the non-pharmacological, non-operative treatments listed in the Lancet-paper together with the authors’ verdicts regarding their effectiveness for both acute and persistent LBP. I find no glaring contradictions with what I regard as the best current evidence and with my posts on the subject. But I feel compelled to point out that the Lancet-paper merely lists the effectiveness of several therapeutic options, and that the value of a treatment is not only determined by its effectiveness. Crucial further elements are a therapy’s cost and its risks, the latter of which also determines the most important criterion: the risk/benefit balance. In my version of the Lancet table, I have therefore added these three variables for non-pharmacological and non-surgical options:
| EFFECTIVENESS ACUTE LBP | EFFECTIVENESS PERSISTENT LBP | RISKS | COSTS | RISK/BENEFIT BALANCE | |
| Advice to stay active | +, routine | +, routine | None | Low | Positive |
| Education | +, routine | +, routine | None | Low | Positive |
| Superficial heat | +/- | Ie | Very minor | Low to medium | Positive (aLBP) |
| Exercise | Limited | +/-, routine | Very minor | Low | Positive (pLBP) |
| CBT | Limited | +/-, routine | None | Low to medium | Positive (pLBP) |
| Spinal manipulation | +/- | +/- | vfbmae sae |
High | Negative |
| Massage | +/- | +/- | Very minor | High | Positive |
| Acupuncture | +/- | +/- | sae | High | Questionable |
| Yoga | Ie | +/- | Minor | Medium | Questionable |
| Mindfulness | Ie | +/- | Minor | Medium | Questionable |
| Rehab | Ie | +/- | Minor | Medium to high | Questionable |
Routine = consider for routine use
+/- = second line or adjunctive treatment
Ie = insufficient evidence
Limited = limited use in selected patients
vfbmae = very frequent, minor adverse effects
sae = serious adverse effects, including deaths, are on record
aLBP = acute low back pain
The reason why my stance, as expressed on this blog and elsewhere, is often critical about certain alternative therapies is thus obvious and transparent. For none of them (except for massage) is the risk/benefit balance positive. And for spinal manipulation, it even turns out to be negative. It goes almost without saying that responsible advice must be to avoid treatments for which the benefits do not demonstrably outweigh the risks.
I imagine that chiropractors, osteopaths and acupuncturists will strongly disagree with my interpretation of the evidence (they might even feel that their cash-flow is endangered) – and I am looking forward to the discussions around their objections.
The new guidelines by the American College of Physicians entitled ‘Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians’ have already been the subject of the previous post. Today, I want to have a closer look at a small section of these guidelines which, I think, is crucial. It is entitled ‘HARMS OF NONPHARMACOLOGIC THERAPIES’. I have taken the liberty of copying it below:
“Evidence on adverse events from the included RCTs and systematic reviews was limited, and the quality of evidence for all available harms data is low. Harms were poorly reported (if they were reported at all) for most of the interventions.
Low-quality evidence showed no reported harms or serious adverse events associated with tai chi, psychological interventions, multidisciplinary rehabilitation, ultrasound, acupuncture, lumbar support, or traction (9,95,150,170–174). Low-quality evidence showed that when harms were reported for exercise, they were often related to muscle soreness and increased pain, and no serious harms were reported. All reported harms associated with yoga were mild to moderate (119). Low-quality evidence showed that none of the RCTs reported any serious adverse events with massage, although 2 RCTs reported soreness during or after massage therapy (175,176). Adverse events associated with spinal manipulation included muscle soreness or transient increases in pain (134). There were few adverse events reported and no clear differences between MCE and controls. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation was associated with an increased risk for skin site reaction but not serious adverse events (177). Two RCTs (178,179) showed an increased risk for skin flushing with heat compared with no heat or placebo, and no serious adverse events were reported. There were no data on cold therapy. Evidence was insufficient to determine harms of electrical muscle stimulation, LLLT, percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, interferential therapy, short-wave diathermy, and taping.”
The first thing that strikes me is the brevity of the section. Surely, guidelines of this nature must include a full discussion of the risks of the treatments in question!
The second thing that is noteworthy is the fact that the authors confirm the fact I have been banging on about for years: clinical trials of alternative therapies far too often fail to mention adverse effects. I have often pointed out that the failure to report adverse effects in clinical trials is an unacceptable violation of medical ethics. By contrast, the guideline authors seem not to feel strongly about this omission.
The third thing that is noteworthy is that the guidelines evaluate the harms of the treatments purely on the basis of the adverse effects reported in the clinical trials and systematic reviews included in their efficacy assessments. This is nonsensical for at least two reasons:
- The guideline authors themselves are aware that the trials very often fail to mention adverse effects.
- For any assessment of harm, one has to go far beyond the evidence of clinical trials, because trials tend to be too small to pick up rare adverse effects, and because they are always conducted under optimally controlled conditions where adverse effects are less likely to occur than in real life.
Together, these features of the assessment of harms explain why the guideline authors arrive at conclusions which are oddly misguided; I would even feel that they resemble a white-wash. Here are two of the most overt misjudgements:
- no harms associated with acupuncture,
- only trivial harm associated with spinal manipulations.
The best evidence we have today shows that acupuncture leads to mild adverse effects in about 10% of all cases and is also associated with very severe complications (e.g. pneumothorax, cardiac tamponade, infections, deaths) in an unknown number of patients. More details can be found for instance here, here, here and here.
And the best evidence available shows that spinal manipulation leads to moderately severe adverse effects in ~50% of all cases. In addition, we know of hundreds of cases of very severe complications resulting in stroke, permanent neurological deficits or deaths. More details can be found for instance here, here, here and here.
In the introduction, I stated that this small section of the guidelines is crucial.
Why?
The reason is simple: any responsible therapeutic decision has to be based not just on the efficacy of the treatment in question but on its risk/benefit balance. The evidence shows that the risks of some alternative therapies can be considerable, a fact that is almost totally neglected in the guidelines. Therefore, the recommendations of the new guidelines by the American College of Physicians entitled ‘Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians’ are in several aspects not entirely correct and need to be reconsidered.
