The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of exercise therapy on physical function of patients with anklyosing spondylitis (AS) through the systemic review and meta-analysis. The 54 studies were identified from computerized search of published researches on PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PEDro, KISS, KERIS database until February, 2008 and review of reference lists. The main search terms were the combination "ankylosing spondylitis", "exercise", "spondyloarthropathy and exercise", "ankylosing spondylitis and physical therapy". The subgroup analysis was performed by the publication year, quality score, type of disease, content of intervention, intervention provider, type of intervention, method of intervention, intervention period and the point of outcome measured. Two reviewers independently selected trials for inclusion, assessed the quality and extracted the data. The result was as follows: The 10 trials were eligible for inclusion criteria, then the systematic review and meta-analysis was assessed on effectiveness of exercise therapy. The meta-analysis of 10 studies based on the random effect model showed that the exercise therapy was beneficial in treating the diseases (effect size .55; 95% confidence interval -.3.75~.61). The findings suggest that the exercise therapy would be appropriate to manage the physical function of AS with evidence based on Meta-analysis. Therefore, the exercise therapy supervised by physical therapist should be recognized as the essential approach to manage the AS and necessarily recommended to improve physical function.

• 심재훈(강남세브란스병원 재활의학과 물리치료실) | Jae-hun Shim 통신저자