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Background: Different conservative treatment interventions are often used to decrease pain and improve function in patients with subacromial impingement syndrome (SAIS). However, the current evidence to support the use of these interventions has not been established.

Objectives: To determine the evidence for conservative treatment interventions regarding pain and function compared to any intervention for SAIS patients.

Methods: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials, published in English between 1 January 1999 and 31 May 2010, was performed using PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Library and manual searching. The methodological quality (PEDro scale) and evidence grade (SBU) were rated. Eight studies were of high quality, four were medium quality, and eight were low quality. Various conservative treatment interventions were evaluated: acupuncture, electrotherapy modalities, exercises, mixed modalities, changing posture, and use of a functional brace.

Results: Limited scientific evidence (LSE) indicates positive effects of exercise and mixed modalities regarding pain and function and high-intensity laser therapy (HILT) regarding pain in SAIS patients. LSE also indicate no effect of electrotherapy modalities, apart from HILT, as treatment for SAIS.

Conclusions: The lack of high quality interventions limits the ability to draw conclusions regarding efficacy from several of the included studies. However, exercise may be as efficient as surgery, manual therapy in combination with exercise seems to be more effective than exercise alone and high-dose exercises seem to be more effective than low-dose exercises. Furthermore, there is contradictory evidence to support the use of acupuncture.