Interventions for Treating Tennis Elbow: An Overview of Systematic Reviews in the Past Ten Years

Abstract purpose: Tennis elbow is a common orthopedic disease, and there are many ways to treat it. This overview aimed to summarize the evidence of different treatments for tennis elbows, so as to provide the best guidance for clinical treatment.Methods: Use computer to search CNKI, WanFang database, WeiPu database, CBM database, PubMed, Cochrane Library and Embase from the time of establishment to May 31, 2019.Te Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) and latest Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR2) checklists were used to assess reporting characteristics and methodological quality, respectively.Results: A total of 37 references were included. Methodological quality and reporting quality were unsatisfactory. Methodological quality was generally low and many key items were not reported. Some research reports are of high quality, but there is no trial registration and protocol written in advance, which may lead to some bias in the research process. The most frequent problems included non-registration of study protocol, absence of a list of excluded studies, and unclear acknowledgment of conflicts of interests. The different types of interventions included have been shown to relieve pain, improve quality of life, and restore elbow function, but there has been a lack of comparative studies.Conclusion: The reporting and methodological quality of systematic reviews and meta-analysis studies were sub-optimal, which demands further improvement. Comparative studies of different types of interventions are needed to determine unclear.PROSPERO registration number: CRD42015017071