4.1 Main Findings
This systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that there were lower immediate postoperative VAS scores, shorter hospitalization times and a lower risk of adverse events in HIFU ablation treatment for AWE than in surgical treatment for AWE.
4.2 Strengths and Limitations
To our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis that compares the clinical outcomes of HIFU with surgical interventions for treating AWE. However, there are also some limitations to this study: (1) Although we included literature from the widest search possible, the number of included articles was limited, possibly due to the rare use of HIFU ablation in AWE; (2) All studies included were cohort studies with a high risk of bias in at least 2 domains; (3) All studies were retrospective without a clear method to identify cases.