It may be time to reconsider the use of elastic therapeutic tape, or kinesiology tape, for painful shoulder muscles, a review of previous studies suggests.

Proponents say the tape helps heal athletic injuries by microscopically lifting the skin and promoting drainage of fluid that carries waste products away from injured tissues.

To analyse the benefits and harms of using kinesiology tape to treat painful rotator cuff muscles, experts searched the medical literature and identified 23 trials that assessed the effects of the tape on rotator cuff disease in 1054 adults.

All the trials had methodological problems that likely biased the results, the researchers reported in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.