**3.1 Selection of the studies**

The initial search provided 4.034 potential reports, after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the sample consisted of 2.169 articles from Pubmed, 814 articles from Web of Science, 781 articles from Medline, 270 from PEDro and 9

**Figure 3.** *Flow chart for different stages of the review.*

found manually through preselected references from the Google Scholar database (**Figure 3**). After duplicated were excluded, 1.881 articles were selected. Both reviewers screened abstracts in a first time. In a second time, articles selected had a more detailed evaluation and 46 articles were excluded by the language, being letters to the editor or comments on other articles. Finally, 102 articles considered valid (93 from the initial search and 9 found manually). Detailed characteristics of the included studies are described in **Tables 1**–**3** in relation to acupuncture, injection or dry needling respectively.




#### **Table 1.**

*Detail of articles included about acupuncture.*




#### **Table 2.**

*Detail of articles included about injections.*


#### **Table 3.**

*Detail of articles included about dry needling.*
