Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Chiropractic Care and Cervical Artery Dissection: No Evidence for Causation
Fascinating!
A new article. On the chiropractic risk of stroke and neck manipulation.
I quote: “Belief in a causal link may have significant negative consequences such as numerous episodes of litigation.” (italics mine)
“This relationship may be explained by the high risk of bias”
Get it all here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4794386/ or see abstract below.
This article affiliated with the Dept Neurosurgery, Penn State Hershey Medical Centre, answers some trying questions about whether chiropractors are as deadly as the AMA would have you believe.
Abstract
Case reports and case control studies have suggested an association between chiropractic neck manipulation and cervical artery dissection (CAD), but a causal relationship has not been established. We evaluated the evidence related to this topic by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of published data on chiropractic manipulation and CAD.
Methods
Search terms were entered into standard search engines in a systematic fashion. The articles were reviewed by study authors, graded independently for class of evidence, and combined in a meta-analysis. The total body of evidence was evaluated according to GRADE criteria.
Results
Our search yielded 253 articles. We identified two class II and four class III studies. There were no discrepancies among article ratings (i.e., kappa=1). The meta-analysis revealed a small association between chiropractic care and dissection (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.26-2.41). The quality of the body of evidence according to GRADE criteria was “very low.”
Conclusions
The quality of the published literature on the relationship between chiropractic manipulation and CAD is very low. Our analysis shows a small association between chiropractic neck manipulation and cervical artery dissection. This relationship may be explained by the high risk of bias and confounding in the available studies, and in particular by the known association of neck pain with CAD and with chiropractic manipulation. There is no convincing evidence to support a causal link between chiropractic manipulation and CAD. Belief in a causal link may have significant negative consequences such as numerous episodes of litigation.