Objective:To investigate the efficacy and safety of scolosis-specific exercises (SSE) in reducing adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) progression, and to provide a reference for developing and promoting AIS non-surgical treatment methods and public health decisions.

Methods:By using "scoliosis" "spine" "scoliosis-specific exercises" "spinal deformities" "idiopathic" "adolescent" "etiology" "treatment" "exercise" as Chinese and English search terms, literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Sport, Discus, Central, Web of Science and CNKI databases from December, 2019. The RevMan 5.3 software was used for Meta-analysis.

Results:Compared with the control group, SSE shows positive effects on improving scoliosis, including reduction of Cobb Angle in cervical vertebra (n=245, MD=-6.88, 95%CI=-7.70--6.05,P<0.01), reduction of Cobb Angle in lumbar vertebra (n=135, MD= -6.85, 95%CI=-10.06--3.63, P<0.01), improvement of physiological curve of spine (n=217, MD=-4.13, 95%CI=-7.92--0.35, P<0.01); In terms of improving quality of life, compared with the control group, patients in the SSE group were better able to improve the function of SRS-22 (n=276, SMD= 2.00, 95%CI=1.69-2.30, P<0.01) and self-image of SRS-22 (n=250, SMD=0.86, 95%CI=0.58-1.14, P<0.01) and reduce the pain value of SRS-22 (n=206, SMD=0.81, 95%CI=0.51-1.10, P<0.01).

Conclusion:SSE treatment can better improve the function of AIS patients and obtain better orthopedic effects than other types of sports or standard nursing methods. In the future, more high-quality researches are needed to further evaluate the efficacy and safety of SSE treatment and other types of sports or standard care methods for AIS.