| Objective To systematically assess the efficacy of vertebroplasty and non-operative therapy for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compressive fractures. Methods Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Chinese Bio-medicine Database, China Journal Full-text Database, VIP database were searched based on the principles and methods of Cochrane systematic review method. Related magazines were searched manually. The search started from the data establishment to November 2011 without language limitation. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of vertebroplasty versus non-operative therapy for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures were included. Data were extracted and their quality was evaluated. The Cochrane Collaboration’s software RevMan 5.0 was used for meta-analysis. Results Seven RCTs, including 614 patients, were included. Results showed that the pain relief of patients treated with vertebroplasty was more obvious than that with the conservative treatment in 1, 4, 12, 24, and 48 weeks follow-up. However, there was no significant difference in incidence of new fractures between patients in the two groups. In addition, there was no significant advantage of the vertebroplasty than the placebo in pain relief, the improvement of functional activities of waist, and quality of life in 4 weeks follow-up. Conclusion Comparing with conservative treatment, vertebroplasty in pain relief has certain advantages. But it needs more high-quality research to assess the long-term effect of different treatments. The above conclusions still need more high-quality randomized controlled trails to verify because of the limitation of the number and quality of the included studies. |