Comparison of three common shoulder injections for rotator cuff tears: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical effectiveness of three common shoulder injections mentioned in the guidelines [corticosteroid, sodium hyaluronate (SH) and platelet-rich plasma (PRP)] on rotator cuff tears. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched up to June 1, 2022, for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and prospective studies on the three injection therapies for rotator cuff tears. The main results were pain relief and functional improvement at 1–5 months and over 6 months, pooled using a network meta-analysis and ranked by SUCRA score. The risk of bias of the included studies was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. RESULTS: Twelve RCTs and 4 prospective studies comprising a total of 1115 patients were included in the review. Three prospective studies were judged to be at high risk of selection bias and performance bias, and one was considered as having a high risk of detection bias. SH injection ranked first in the short term in pain relief (MD: − 2.80; 95%CI − 3.91, − 1.68) and functional improvement (MD:19.17; 95%CI 12.29, 26.05), while PRP injection obtained better results in the long term in both pain relief (MD: − 4.50; 95%CI − 4.97, − 4.03) and functional improvement (MD:11.11; 95%CI 0.53,21.68). CONCLUSIONS: PRP injection has the potential to successfully treat rotator cuff tears as an alternative to corticosteroids in the long term, in terms of either therapeutic efficiency or adverse effects, followed by SH injection. More research is needed to make high-quality recommendations on treatment options for injection treatments of rotator cuff tears. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13018-023-03747-z.