ReviewCureus2026
Radon Spa Therapy for the Treatment of Musculoskeletal Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Review in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Emerging evidence indicates that radon spa therapy can confer beneficial effects on pain alleviation and quality of life in individuals with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). This meta-analysis aims to systematically synthesize the available literature examining the clinical outcome of radon spa therapy on patients with MSDs. A search of PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses from the inception of the database to June 2025. Studies were included if they reported outcomes for pain intensity, functional capacity, or quality of life/health status using validated measures after treatment with radon spa. Overall, eight studies met the inclusion criteria with 2,152 patients and a mean of 7.9 ± 2.2 months of follow-up. The mean Modified Coleman Score was 70.25 (out of 100), indicating a good methodological quality. The meta-analysis of pain intensity revealed significant effects of radon spa treatment versus controls in the medium to long-term period. The pooled effect size difference was 0.2720 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.1204 to 0.4237, p = 0.0004), with low heterogeneity (I² = 43.28%, Q = 6.87, p = 0.1431). For the overall radon spa treatment effect compared to baseline, the medium to long-term period showed a pooled Hedges' g of 0.9936 (95% CI = 0.0801 to 1.9070, p = 0.033), indicating a statistically significant therapeutic effect of radon spa treatment in patients with MSDs. There is good-quality evidence to show that radon spa therapy is significantly better compared to placebo in reducing pain at the medium to long-term follow-up of patients suffering from MSDs. Based on these results, radon spa therapy can be considered an effective alternative to other conservative means in the management of MSDs.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.