Measuring the placebo effect in carpal tunnel syndrome
Randomised controlled trialHumans
- Design
- Randomised controlled trial
- Subjects
- 68 patients with mild to moderate carpal tunnel syndrome, randomised to palmitoylethanolamide or placebo
- Dose used in the study
- Palmitoylethanolamide or placebo; dose not in this abstract (see the same group's 2017 trial)
- Duration
- 2 months
- What was measured
- Pain VAS, Levine symptom severity and functional status scores, electromyography in 68 patients over 2 months of treatment
What the authors reported
Both groups improved, and the study reported:
- Symptom severity fell 18 percent on placebo alone.
- Function fell 12.5 percent on placebo alone.
- Pain fell 20 percent on placebo alone.
- Within the placebo group the change was statistically significant for function (p = 0.0028) but not for symptom severity (p = 0.0865) or pain (p = 0.3407).
- Differences between the arms reached significance on only a few items.
Limits of this study
A secondary analysis of the group's 2017 trial, written to quantify the placebo response. It reports improvement of up to about 20% in the studied parameters in the placebo group, and the authors note wide variability against published figures. Authors declare no conflicts.
Source
PubMed 31993783 · doi:10.1186/s10195-019-0540-4
Entry checked against the abstract on PubMed on 2026-10-19. The dose shown is the dose the researchers used. It is not a recommendation. How to read this page.