Effects of calcitonin on lumbar spinal stenosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
BACKGROUND
To investigate whether calcitonin can improve walking distance (WD) and visual analog pain scale (VAS) in patients who suffer lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).


METHODS
We performed a search on CENTRAL, PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases up to July 2014; we finally found 19 original articles, of which only 6 were in full compliance with the RCT criteria. These full articles were carefully reviewed independent and in blinded way by two previously capacitated reviewers for the objective to extract data and score a quality of these articles by the criteria of Cochrane Handbook (5.1.0).


RESULTS
We accepted 6 studies with 232 participants. There is no evidence show calcitonin is better than placebo or paracetamol regardless of mode of administration.


CONCLUSIONS
This meta-analysis suggest that calcitonin provide no significant improvement in pain symptoms or walking distance in LSS patients.
Department of Orthopaedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China.
Kun
K
Peng
Department of Orthopaedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China.
Long
L
Chen
Department of Orthopaedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China.
Jing
J
Peng
Department of Orthopaedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China.
Fei
F
Xing
Department of Orthopaedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, China.
Zhou
Z
Xiang
Lumbar spinal stenosis; calcitonin; neurogenic claudicationl; pain; walking distance