Table 1.

Summary of trials.

	Hoehler 1981 [42]	Gibson 1985 [43]	Cleary 1994 [47]
Years conducted	1973–1979	...	1991–1992
Country	United States	United Kingdom	United Kingdom
Setting	University clinic	Hospital outpatient clinic	Ambulatory clinic
No. of subjects randomized	95	109	30*
Comparison	OMT vs soft tissue massage and sham manipulation	OMT vs short-wave diathermy OMT vs detuned short-wave diathermy	OMT vs sham manipulation
Subject characteristics
Age, y
Mean ± SD	OMT, 30.1 ± 8.4 Controls, 32.1 ± 9.8	OMT, 34 ± 14 Short-wave diarthermy controls, 35 ± 16 Detuned short-wave diathermy controls, 40 ± 16	Overall age range, 50–60
Sex
% male	OMT, 59 Controls, 59	OMT, 49 Detuned short-wave diathermy controls, 68 Short-wave diarthermy controls, 53	OMT, 0 Controls, 0
Type of low back pain	Referred patients with acute or chronic low back pain	Referred patients with low back pain of greater than 2 months' and less than 12 months' duration	Recruited subjects with chronic low back pain in conjunction with menopausal symptoms
OMT protocol
Technique	High-velocity, low-amplitude thrust only	Variety of techniques	Low-force techniques
No. of treatments
Mean ± SD	OMT, 4.8 ± 2.7 Controls, 3.9 ± 2.5	4, per protocol	10, per protocol
Outcomes assessment	Blinded	Blinded	Assessment independent of treatment, blinding not specified
No. of pain contrasts	3	6 (3 for each of the two OMT vs control treatment comparisons)	1
Type of pain outcome	Dichotomous pain outcomes	Dichotomous pain outcomes	Dichotomous pain outcome
Timing of pain contrasts
Short-term	First treatment and mean, 20–30 days following randomization	2 and 4 weeks	...
Intermediate-term	Mean, 41–51 days following randomization	...	...
Long-term	...	12 weeks	15 weeks
	Andersson 1999 [44]	Burton 2000 [45]	Licciardone 2003 [46]
Years conducted	1992–1994	...	2000–2001
Country	United States	United Kingdom	United States
Setting	Health maintenance organization	Hospital orthopedic department	University clinic
No. of subjects randomized	178	40	91
Comparison	Usual care and OMT vs usual care only	OMT vs chemonucleolysis	Usual care and OMT vs usual care and sham manipulation Usual care and OMT vs usual care only
Subject characteristics
Age, y
Mean ± SD	OMT, 28.5 ± 10.6 Controls, 37.0 ± 11.0	Overall, 41.9 ± 10.6	Usual care and OMT, 49 ± 12 Usual care and sham manipulation controls, 52 ± 12 Usual care only controls, 49 ± 12
Sex
% male	OMT, 41 Controls, 44	Overall, 48	Usual care and OMT, 31 Usual care and sham manipulation controls, 43 Usual care only controls, 35
Type of low back pain	Patients with low back pain of 3 or more weeks' and less than 6 months' duration	Recruited patients with low back pain and sciatica; mean duration, 30 and 32 weeks in OMT and chemonucleolysis groups, respectively	Recruited subjects with low back pain of at least 3 months' duration
OMT protocol
Technique	Variety of techniques, individualized to patient	Variety of techniques, individualized to patient	Variety of techniques, individualized to subject
No. of treatments
Mean ± SD	8, per protocol	Mean for OMT, 11; range 6–18	7, per protocol
Outcomes assessment	Blinded	Blinded	Blinded
No. of pain contrasts	1	3	6 (3 for each of the two OMT vs control treatment comparisons)
Type of pain outcome	Pain scale	Pain scales	Pain scales
Timing of pain contrasts
Short-term	...	2 weeks	1 month
Intermediate-term	12 weeks	6 weeks	3 months
Long-term	...	12 months	6 months

OMT denotes osteopathic manipulative treatment.

*A total of 30 subjects with menopausal symptoms were randomized; however, only 12 subjects had low back pain.