OBJECTIVE: There has been no uniform therapeutic standard for knee os-teoarthritis by now. Different kinds of non-operative treatments were applied to evaluate their validity and reliability on knee osteoarthritis. DATA SOURCES: A computer-based online search of Ovid full text database (March 25, 2004) in Medline and Cochrane database (2004) was under taken to include randomized controlled trials which had been confirmed and relevant reviews by using the keywords of 'knee, osteoarthritis, validity, reliability, non-operative treatment, randomized controlled trial'. STUDY SELECTION: All the retrieved data were comprehensively analyzed, and randomized controlled trials and system evaluations which evaluated the reliability and validity of the therapeutic methods for knee osteoarthritis were included. There were 16 groups of randomized controlled trials to compare among 8 kinds of non-aspirin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and 6 groups of randomized controlled trials to compare non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs with placebo, in which totally 1689 cases (25% males and 75% females) with an average age of 60.8 years, were involved. In another evaluation, there were 16 groups of randomized controlled trials including 2,029 patients to compare glucosamine with placebo and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs respectively. Besides, there were 26 groups of randomized controlled trials about hyaluronic acid and 5 about herbal medicine in the system evaluation. In the system evaluation of non-medication, there were 17 groups of randomized controlled trials about exercise involving 2,562 cases. Among the rest physiotherapy, there were 28 groups including 1,453 cases in the system evaluation. DATA EXTRACTION: According to the keywords, totally 89 relevant articles were collected, but 35 pieces were excluded for unqualified articles or cross reference, and 30 thirty were cited. DATA SYNTHESIS: Medication is able to apparently alleviate the ache of knee joint, remit dysfunction, promote metabolism of articular cartilage, repair joint structure, and improve the sufferer' quality of life entirely, different kinds of drugs produce different curative effects on the different phases of osteoarthritis. Exercise can improve the motion of joint, enhance ache endurance, alleviate depression and anxiety, enhance muscle strength and flexibility, alleviate tiredness and ache, and improve the function. Psychrotherapy can enhance the muscle force of quadriceps muscle of thigh, alleviate swelling, and improve the articulatory activity range and flexibility. Both medication and non-medication are effective in improving the motion range and alleviating pain of knee joint, but there are respective merits and demerits in the reliability and validity. CONCLUSION: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, glucosamine, hyaluronic acid, exercise of limbs, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, muscular electrical stimulating therapy etc all have different merits in the validity and reliability respectively, but acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine are indeterminate in the curative effects for lack of uniform criteria for evaluation, so more experiments are needed for support.

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