Background: The purpose of this meta-analysis is to provide an evidence-based overview of the effectiveness of corticosteroid injection for the treatment of stenosing tenosynovitis (trigger digits). We have analysed only randomised control trials (RCTs) which compared the effectiveness of corticosteroid injections with control injections.

Methods: The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Medline, Web of Science and Scopus were searched to identify relevant studies. The keywords for search in the database were (‘stenosing tenosynovitis’ OR ‘trigger finger’) AND injections. After screening titles and abstracts of these studies, full-text articles of studies that fulfilled the selection criteria were obtained. For the meta-analysis, we determined the pooled mean failure rate, odds ratio (OR), relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the risk of failure rate between the corticosteroid injection group and the control group through the random-effects model.

Results: Six RCTs were found that involved 368 participants. The corticosteroid injection group included 190 patients and 178 patients were included in the control group. The pooled estimate of successful treatment in the corticosteroid injections group was 63.68 ± 5.32% and that in the control group was 27.53 ± 11.52%. The pooled RR of treatment failure between the corticosteroid injection group and the control group was 0.49 (95% CI 0.40–0.60). The pooled OR of treatment failure between the corticosteroid injection group and the control group was 0.18 (95% CI 0.08–0.44). All the included studies reported either mild or no complications with corticosteroids or placebo injections.

Conclusions: In the treatment of stenosing tenosynovitis, the corticosteroid injections have better outcomes compared to the control injections and this meta-analysis provides significant evidence of the effectiveness of corticosteroid injection for stenosing tenosynovitis with minimal adverse effects.

Level of Evidence: Level II (Therapeutic)

Keywords:

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