How effective is manual therapy for patients with cervical radiculopathy?

What is it about?

Manual therapy is often used for patients with neck pain with or without radicular symptoms, but there is sparse evidence on the effectiveness in cervical radiculopathy. The aim of this study was to assess current levels of evidence on the effectiveness of manual therapy interventions for patients with cervical radiculopathy. Electronic data bases were systematically searched for clinical guidelines, reviews and randomised clinical trials (RCTs) reporting on the effectiveness of manual therapy for patients with cervical radiculopathy. Eight relevant reviews, two guidelines and two recent RCTs, that had not yet been included in either, were retrieved. The overall quality of the evidence of included studies was evaluated using the GRADE method. Most interventions were only studied in one single RCT.

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Why is it important?

Certain types of orthopeadic manual physical therapy strategies are possibly effective for patients wit cervical radiculopathy, but they are focussed more on a multi-modal strategy including neurodynamic mobilizations than on single/simple spinal manipulations