Neuromuscular electrical stimulation for cancer pain in children with osteosarcoma: A protocol of systematic review

BACKGROUND: This systematic review will assess the effectiveness and safety neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) for cancer pain (CP) in children with osteosarcoma. METHODS: This systematic review protocol will retrieve the following electronic databases from inception to June 1 in Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Scopus, CNKI, and VIP database. Manual head-searching of reference lists and conference proceedings will be performed to further examine the articles of interest. No restrictions will be applied to language and publication status. We will utilize a 3-stage approach to scan titles, abstracts, and full-text studies against all eligibility criteria, and collect data from included trials. Study quality will be evaluated by the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. If possible, we will narratively summarize study results and carry out meta-analysis. RESULTS: This study will recapitulate the present high quality trials to appraise the effectiveness and safety of NMES for CP in children with osteosarcoma. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study will present evidence to determine whether NMES is effective and safe for CP in children with osteosarcoma.