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.