BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis is the most common musculoskeletal disease. Extracorporeal shockwave therapy had shown an effect on osteoarthritis in both some animal experiments and clinical studies, but there was no systematic review to confirm the value of shockwave therapy in the treatment of all types of osteoarthritis and compare it with other traditional therapies (especially traditional Chinese medicine). METHOD: PubMed, Medline, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database, and VIP database were searched up to December 10, 2019, to identify randomized controlled trials comparing shockwave therapy and other treatments for osteoarthritis. Visual analogue scale and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index were extracted and analyzed by RevMan and STATA software as outcomes of pain reduction and functional improvement. Adverse reactions were recorded to evaluate the safety of shockwave therapy. RESULTS: Shockwave therapy had significant improvement in both pain reduction and functional improvement compared with placebo, corticosteroid, hyaluronic acid, medication, and ultrasound (p < 0.05). In functional improvement, shockwave therapy showed statistical improvement compared with kinesiotherapy and moxibustion (p < 0.05) but not with acupotomy surgery (p = 0.24). A significant difference between shockwave therapy and platelet-rich plasma was observed in pain reduction (p < 0.05) but not in functional improvement (p = 0.89). Meanwhile, a statistical difference was found between shockwave therapy and fumigation in functional improvement (p < 0.05) but not in pain reduction (p = 0.26). Additionally, there was no statistically significant difference between shockwave therapy and manipulation in both pain reduction (p = 0.21) and functional improvement (p = 0.45). No serious adverse reaction occurred in all of studies. CONCLUSIONS: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy could be recommended in the treatment of osteoarthritis as a noninvasive therapy with safety and effectiveness, but the grade of recommendations needs to be discussed in a further study.

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