BACKGROUND: Ultrasonic therapy is one of several physical therapy modalities suggested for the management of pain and loss of function due to osteoarthritis. However, its effectiveness still remains controversial in the previous studies. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the effect of ultrasonic therapy for the treatment of relieving knee osteoarthritis pain. METHODS: A retrieval of PubMed, Ovid/Medline, Ovid/Embase, and Cochrane database was performed. The relevant literatures were manually retrieved. The retrieval deadline was set on March 31, 2014. Randomized controlled trials on ultrasonic therapy of knee osteoarthritis were collected. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: A total of eight studies of meta-analysis were accumulated. Among them, six studies adopted visual analog scale and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index, one study adopted visual analog scale only, and one study adopted Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index. Then the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index scores were transformed into visual analog scale scores for data analysis. There was a statistical difference between the groups in the visual analog scale pain score (standardized standard deviation -0.51; 95% confidence interval -0.68 to -0.33; p = 0.05). Ultrasonic therapy is an effective method for knee osteoarthritis pain.

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