Guideline Atlas

Low back pain

Also known as: LBP · lumbago · radiculopathy · sciatica

Also relevant to Preventive Medicine & Primary Care

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United StatesACR/AAOS
Current

Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians

American College of Physicians (ACP) · 2017 · 2017 guideline

ACP's clinical practice guideline on non-invasive management of non-radicular low back pain, published in Annals of Internal Medicine. It separates advice for acute or subacute pain from advice for chronic pain and prioritises non-drug approaches before medication in both settings.

  • For acute or subacute low back pain the guideline favours non-drug options such as superficial heat, massage, acupuncture or spinal manipulation before medication. source
  • For chronic low back pain, non-pharmacological approaches including exercise, acupuncture, yoga and tai chi are recommended first, with NSAIDs as the initial drug option. source
  • Opioids are positioned as a last-resort option because of substantial potential harms. source
EuropeEULAR

No EULAR guideline indexed for this condition yet.

Every entry is added by hand and cited to the issuing society, so a gap here means we have not verified one — not that none exists. Know the right one? Tell us.

US vs EU key differences

No curated US/EU comparison yet for this disease.

What changed recently

  1. US2007 guideline2017 guideline2017-04-04

    The 2017 guideline replaced the 2007 drug-first approach with non-pharmacological treatment as the first-line option for acute, subacute and chronic low back pain. Acetaminophen, endorsed in 2007, was dropped after a placebo-controlled trial showed no pain benefit, leaving NSAIDs as the first drug choice and tramadol or duloxetine as second-line for chronic pain.

    source ↗curation confidence 90%

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