Effectiveness of mud-pack therapy and mud-bath therapy in osteoarthritis. A systematic review.

ObjectivesOsteoarthritis has a tremendous socioeconomic impact in terms of drug spending, hospital admissions, work productivity and temporary or permanent incapacity. Mud therapy has been discussed as a potential conservative treatment options for osteoarthritis. However, findings from several trials still remain controversial. For this reason, we aimed to systematically review the highest evidence provided by published trials to estimate the clinical effect of mud-pack and mud-bath therapy for the treatment of osteoarthritis. MethodsWe searched PubMed, PEDro and the Cochrane CENTRAL Register for Controlled Trials for articles published between 2000 and 2020 using the terms "orthopedics", "orthopaedics", "musculoskeletal", "osteoarthritis" and "mud-bath", "mud-pack".ResultsOf the 19 studies included, 15 examined the effects of mud-bath therapy in knee osteoarthritis treatment. One study focused on the treatment effect of mud-bath on hand osteoarthritis, another study examined treatment effects in hip and knee osteoarthritis, two studies enrolled patients with chronic low back pain caused by lumbar spine osteoarthritis. We systematically reviewed the data obtained from literature and summarized the results on the basis of the main outcomes. The results show significant improvements in function, quality of life and perceived pain for patients with osteoarthritis.ConclusionResults of randomized controlled trials suggest that mud therapy is part of a promising integrated and synergistic multidisciplinary approach in combination with other treatment forms like pharmacotherapy or physiotherapy.