A systematic review of complementary and alternative veterinary medicine: "miscellaneous therapies" Show others and affiliations
2021 (English) In: Animals, E-ISSN 2076-2615, Vol. 11, no 12, article id 3356Article, review/survey (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
There is an increasing interest in complementary and alternative veterinary medicine (CAVM). There is, however, an uncertainty of the efficacy of these methods. Therefore, the aim of this systematic literature review is to assess the evidence for clinical efficacy of 24 CAVM therapies used in cats, dogs, and horses. A bibliographic search, restricted to studies in cats, dogs, and horses, was performed on Web of Science Core Collection, CABI, and PubMed. Relevant articles were assessed for scientific quality, and information was extracted on study characteristics, species, type of treatment, indication, and treatment effects. Of 982 unique publications screened, 42 were eligible for inclusion, representing nine different CAVM therapies, which were aromatherapy, gold therapy, homeopathy, leeches (hirudotherapy), mesotherapy, mud, neural therapy, sound (music) therapy, and vibration therapy. For 15 predefined therapies, no study was identified. The risk of bias was assessed as high in 17 studies, moderate to high in 10, moderate in 10, low to moderate in four, and low in one study. In those studies where the risk of bias was low to moderate, there was considerable heterogeneity in reported treatment effects. Therefore, the scientific evidence is not strong enough to define the clinical efficacy of the 24 CAVM therapies.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages MDPI, 2021. Vol. 11, no 12, article id 3356
Keywords [en]
Aromatherapy, Gold therapy, Homeopathy, Leeches, Mesotherapy, Mud, Music therapy, Neural therapy, Vibration therapy
National Category
Clinical Science
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-190006 DOI: 10.3390/ani11123356 ISI: 000735288400001 Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85119672243 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-190006 DiVA, id: diva2:1615763
2021-12-012021-12-012024-01-17 Bibliographically approved