Fact · Accessibility and health
The same review found no trials comparing surgery with placebo surgery or with no treatment, so confidence in surgery's effect is limited.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“we did not find studies comparing surgery with placebo surgery or no treatment.”
Surgical versus non-surgical treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome, V Lusa et al., Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2024, Key messages.
Open the original (DOI 10.1002/14651858.CD001552.pub3)- What it measures
- Placebo-controlled surgery trials are hard to run, so most comparisons are surgery against other active treatments.
- What it does not show
- This is a gap in the evidence, not evidence of no effect.