• Álvaro Megía García, Diego Serrano-Muñoz, Elisabeth Bravo-Esteban, Sara Ando Lafuente, Juan Avendaño-Coy, and Julio Gómez-Soriano.
• PainClinic C.B. Fisioterapia y Podología Toledo, España; Grupo de Investigación en Fisioterapia Toledo (GIFTO). EUE. Fisioterapia de Toledo, Universidad de Castilla la Mancha, Toledo, España.
• Aten Primaria. 2019 Aug 1; 51 (7): 406-415.

ObjectiveTo determine whether transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has an analgesic effect greater than placebo or other treatments in patients with fibromyalgia. Furthermore, it was intended to analyze the optimal application parameters to achieve a greater reduction of pain.DesignA systematic review.Data SourceRandomized clinical trials on the effect of TENS on fibromyalgia in the databases Pubmed, Cochrane and PEDro until November 2016.Selection Of Studies8 studies out of a total of 62 were selected. Controlled clinical trials in which TENS was applied in patients with fibromyalgia were included.Data ExtractionPain was analyzed as the main variable, although other variables such as fatigue, quality of life and impact, range of motion and depression were also included.Results6 out of 8 studies obtained a significant decrease of pain. In 2 studies, TENS was applied as complementary treatment to therapeutic exercise with results evidencing a decrease in pain. The rest of the variables studied presented a great variability and conclusive results could not be established.ConclusionsTreatment with TENS is effective for reducing pain in people with fibromyalgia. In addition, the inclusion of TENS in therapeutic exercise programs seems to have a greater effect than practicing therapeutic exercise in isolation. However, no efficacy has been demonstrated in other variables different to pain. Further studies are needed to investigate the optimization of the parameters of the TENS and a greater consensus among the variables used.Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

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