Pavone V, Vescio A, Valenti F, Sapienza M, Sessa G, Testa G. Growing pains: What do we know about etiology? A systematic review. World J Orthop 2019; 10(4): 192-205 [PMID: 31041161 DOI: 10.5312/wjo.v10.i4.192]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Vito Pavone, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of General Surgery and Medical Surgical Specialties, Section of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, University Hospital Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele, University of Catania, Via Santa Sofia, 78, Catania 95123, Italy. vpavone@unict.it
Research Domain of This Article
Orthopedics
Article-Type of This Article
Systematic Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Orthop. Apr 18, 2019; 10(4): 192-205 Published online Apr 18, 2019. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v10.i4.192
Growing pains: What do we know about etiology? A systematic review
Vito Pavone, Andrea Vescio, Fabiana Valenti, Marco Sapienza, Giuseppe Sessa, Gianluca Testa
Vito Pavone, Andrea Vescio, Fabiana Valenti, Marco Sapienza, Giuseppe Sessa, Gianluca Testa, Department of General Surgery and Medical Surgical Specialties, Section of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, University Hospital Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele, University of Catania, Catania 95123, Italy
Author contributions: Pavone V, Vescio A and Testa G contributed equally to the work; Valenti F conceptualized and designed the review together with Vescio A and Testa G carried out the analysis; Sapienza M and Sessa G drafted the initial manuscript; all authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript as submitted.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: A PRIMA checklist was uploaded.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Vito Pavone, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of General Surgery and Medical Surgical Specialties, Section of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, University Hospital Policlinico-Vittorio Emanuele, University of Catania, Via Santa Sofia, 78, Catania 95123, Italy. vpavone@unict.it
Telephone: +39-95-3782273 Fax: +39-95-3782720
Received: January 2, 2019 Peer-review started: January 4, 2019 First decision: January 29, 2019 Revised: February 15, 2019 Accepted: March 16, 2019 Article in press: March 16, 2019 Published online: April 18, 2019
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Growing pains are the most common cause of musculoskeletal pain in early childhood. The etiopathogenesis of the disease was widely investigated but it is still unknown.
Research motivation
Numerous studies tried to explain the major actors in growing pains etiology but there is a lack of summarize of the evidence.
Research objectives
Analyze the available scientific literature to provide an update on the latest evidence on the etiology
Research methods
Two databases (Pubmed and Science Direct) were systematically searched for relevant article by two independent reviewer. Every step of the review was done according to PRISMA guidelines. Due to article heterogeneity and the topic after data analysis, a descriptive analysis was performed.
Research results
N = 32 articles were included in this systematic review after applying our inclusions and exclusion criteria. Available evidence on growing pains etiology is still inconclusive. Several hypotheses have been researched but none of them was considered decisive.
Research conclusions
After our systematic review we conclude that growing pains etiology rely on different factors, that individually or in association, might be responsible for the onset of the syndrome.
Research perspectives
Further clinical and preclinical studies are strongly encouraged to understand better the possible causes and the etiopathogenetic mechanisms underlying growing pains. Interesting perspective from studies on vitamin D deficit and supplies and anatomic/mechanical theories were found and should be further investigated.
