A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 4 studies with a total of 178 subjects. The studies included a range of age groups (ie, children, adolescents and adults) across the disease spectrum from early HIV through late-stage AIDS in either community or palliative care settings, and the outcome measures were a combination of quality of life and immunological function. For quality of life measures, massage therapy in combination with other modalities, such as meditation and stress reduction, were superior to massage therapy alone or to the other modalities alone. The quality of life domains with significant effect sizes included self-reported reduced use of health care resources, improvement in self-perceived spiritual quality of life and improvement in total quality of life scores. One study also reported positive changes in immune function, in particular CD4+ cell count and natural killer cell counts, due to massage therapy, and one study reported no difference between people given massage therapy and controls in immune parameters. Adverse or harmful effects were not well reported.
Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study quality (inadequate allocation concealment) and by imprecise results (limited study size for each comparison).
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