Comparison of conservative and operative treatment for distal radius fracture: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

BACKGROUND The authors conducted a meta-analysis to compare the effectiveness and safety of conservative and operative treatment for distal radius fracture. METHODS PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched to identify the relevant studies published up to February of 2015. All randomized controlled trials published to compare the conservative and operative treatment were included in the study. Results were pooled using meta-analysis to compare the efficacy and safety of conservative and operative treatment for distal radius fracture. RESULTS The databases were derived from seven qualified studies that included a total of 523 patients in which 269 cases adopted conservative treatment while 253 cases adopted operative treatment. Overall, compared with the conservative treatment- treated the distal radius fracture, operative therapies resulted in significantly better radiographic (P<0.05), however, no significant differences of the functional outcomes and complication rate were observed between the two methods (P>0.05). CONCLUSION Surgical treatment seems to be more effective distal radius fracture compared with conservative treatment when the radiographic outcomes were analyzed, and no significant differences were deteched in the functional outcomes and complication rate.