A recent article published in Cochrane Database System Review evaluated the effectiveness of topical NSAIDs treatment for chronic musculoskeletal pain among older adults. The authors performed a systematic review of the literature addressing topical NSAID use for chronic musculoskeletal pain and selected studies that evaluated treatment efficacy for more than 8 weeks and had a minimum of 10 participants. 34 studies (a total of 7688 participants) were identified using the specified search criteria. The authors found that topical NSAIDs were capable of providing effective pain relief for knee and hand osteoarthritis, but limited data was available for other chronic conditions.
