Treatment of Morton's neuroma: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: The treatment of Morton's neuroma (MN) can be operative, conservative and infiltrative. Our aim was the evaluation of evidence on outcomes with different types of conservative, infiltrative and surgical treatment in patients affected by primary MN.

METHODS: The bibliographic search was conducted in MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, DARE. Only studies in English were collected. The last search was in August 2015. Case series and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing patients' satisfaction or pain improvement at an average follow-up of at least 6 months after treatment of primary MN were included. Two reviewers selected the studies, evaluated their methodological quality, and retrieved data independently.

RESULTS: Of 283 titles found, only 29 met the inclusion criteria. Data showed better outcomes with operative treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: The evaluated case series and few RCTs showed better results with invasive treatment. More and better RCTs which evaluate risk-benefit ratio are required to confirm these results.