Is wrist splint more effective than forearm band for lateral epicondylitis?

Lateral epicondylitis is a common cause of lateral elbow pain. There are many treatments able to improvement symptoms, including orthotic devices. The main available orthosis are wrist splint and forearm band. However, it is not clear which one constitutes the best alternative for symptomatic treatment.

To answer this question we used Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach.

We identified three systematic reviews including four studies overall, all of them randomized trials. With this evidence, we concluded there might be no difference in global measure of improvement and pain free grip strength between the forearm band and wrist splint, and it is not clear whether using a wrist splint decreases pain in comparison with a forearm band, because the certainty of the evidence is very low.