Chronic Pain
2024 Meta-Analysis: PEMF for Osteoarthritis
Grade A-Systematic review and meta-analysis2024
What did this study find?
This 2024 systematic review pooled seventeen trials of pulsed electromagnetic field treatment in osteoarthritis. Across the pooled data, patients reported roughly a sixty percent drop in pain scores and a forty-two percent improvement in the WOMAC function index. Pooled results average across different devices and signal settings, so individual device performance cannot be inferred.
What are the details of this record?
- Full citation
- Cianni L, et al. Current Evidence Using PEMF in Osteoarthritis: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Bioengineering. 2024.
- Journal
- Bioengineering
- Authors
- Cianni L, et al.
- Study design
- Systematic review and meta-analysis
- Sample size and population
- Not reported in the published record
- Evidence grade
- Grade A- on the BioReg grading scale
- Reported findings
- Systematic review of 17 studies showing 60% decrease in VAS pain scores and 42% improvement in WOMAC scores. Clinically significant pain reduction across multiple high-quality RCTs.
- DOI
- No DOI recorded
- PubMed
- PMID 38610722
- Related categories
- Chronic Pain (category grade A-)
A positive PEMF study is not evidence for a specific device unless the signal parameters studied, frequency, intensity, waveform, and exposure duration, are reasonably comparable to what that device produces. Where this record does not list those parameters, the source report did not publish them. See the grading methodology. Library last reviewed 2026-08-27.