Treatment of residual and phantom limb pain using percutaneous ablation: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

The review includes only one randomized controlled trial, which showed no benefit for cryoablation. The majority of included studies were uncontrolled case series and case reports, which are highly susceptible to bias and placebo effects. There was significant heterogeneity in patient populations, amputation types, and ablation targets. Functional outcomes were not consistently measured, with most studies relying on crude metrics like prosthetic usage. The pooled positive results for thermal and pulsed radiofrequency are derived from low-quality evidence and cannot be considered definitive.

The authors declared that no financial support was received for this work and/or its publication.

Do not interpret the pooled pain reductions for radiofrequency ablation as proven efficacy. These results come from uncontrolled case series and reports, which lack the rigor to rule out placebo effects or natural variation, especially when the only randomized trial in the review found no benefit for a similar technique.