Effect of routine diagnostic imaging for patients with musculoskeletal disorders: A meta-analysis.

Purpose: The increasing use of diagnostic imaging has led to high expenditures, unnecessary invasive procedures and/or false-positive diagnoses, without certainty that the patients actually benefit from these imaging procedures. This review explores whether diagnostic imaging leads to better patient-reported outcomes in individuals with musculoskeletal disorders.

Method: Databases were searched from inception to September 2013, together with scrutiny of selected bibliographies.