Efficacy and safety of acupuncture for polycystic ovary syndrome: An overview of systematic reviews / 中西医结合学报

BACKGROUND@#Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the primary cause of anovulatory infertility, bringing serious harm to women's physical and mental health. Acupuncture may be an effective treatment for PCOS. However, systematic reviews (SRs) on the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for PCOS have reported inconsistent results, and the quality of these studies has not been adequately assessed.@*OBJECTIVE@#To summarize and evaluate the current evidence on the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for PCOS, as well as to assess the quality and risks of bias of the available SRs.@*SEARCH STRATEGY@#Nine electronic databases (Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, Chongqing VIP Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database, and China Biology Medicine disc) were searched from their establishment to July 27, 2022. Based on the principle of combining subject words with text words, the search strategy was constructed around search terms for "acupuncture," "polycystic ovary syndrome," and "systematic review."@*INCLUSION CRITERIA@#SRs of randomized controlled trials that explored the efficacy and (or) safety of acupuncture for treating patients with PCOS were included.@*DATA EXTRACTION AND ANALYSIS@#Two authors independently extracted study data according to a predesigned form. Tools for evaluating the methodological quality, risk of bias, reporting quality, and confidence in study outcomes, including A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR 2), Risk of Bias in Systematic Reviews (ROBIS), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses for Acupuncture (PRISMA-A), and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE), were used to score the included SRs.@*RESULTS@#A total of 885 studies were retrieved, and 11 eligible SRs were finally included in this review. The methodological quality of 2 SRs (18.18%) was low, while the other 9 SRs (81.82%) were scored as extremely low. Four SRs (36.36%) were considered to be of low risk of bias. As for reporting quality, the reporting completeness of 9 SRs (81.82%) was more than 70%. Concerning the confidence in study results, 2 study results were considered to have a high quality of evidence (3.13%), 14 (21.88%) a "moderate" quality, 28 (43.75%) a "low" quality, and 20 (31.24%) considered a "very low" quality. Descriptive analyses suggested that combining acupuncture with other medicines can effectively improve the clinical pregnancy rate (CPR) and ovulation rate, and reduce luteinizing hormone/follicle-stimulating hormone ratio, homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, and body mass index (BMI). When compared with medicine alone, acupuncture alone also can improve CPR. Further, when compared with no intervention, acupuncture had a better effect in promoting the recovery of menstrual cycle and reducing BMI. Acupuncture was reported to cause no adverse events or some adverse events without serious harm.@*CONCLUSION@#The efficacy and safety of acupuncture for PCOS remains uncertain due to the limitations and inconsistencies of current evidence. More high-quality studies are needed to support the use of acupuncture in PCOS.

Rule mining of acupoint and medication selection of acupoint application therapy for functional constipation / 中国针灸

OBJECTIVE@#To analyze the rules of acupoint and medication selection of acupoint application therapy for functional constipation (FC) by data mining technology.@*METHODS@#The clinical research literature regarding acupoint application therapy for FC from published to February 26, 2020 was searched in CNKI, VIP, Wanfang, SinoMed and PubMed. The prescriptions were extracted, and by using SPSS24.0 and SPSS Modeler14.0 software, the use of high-frequency acupoints and medication was summarized. The association rule analysis, cluster analysis and core prescription analysis of acupoints and medication were analyzed.@*RESULTS@#A total of 122 prescriptions of acupoint application therapy were included, involving 32 acupoints. The core prescription of acupoints was Tianshu (ST 25), Dachangshu (BL 25), Shenque (CV 8) and Guanyuan (CV 4). The high-frequency meridians mainly included conception vessel, @*CONCLUSION@#The use of local acupoint and regulating-

Retrospect and prospect of researches on acupoint property: commemorating the 40th anniversary of / 中国针灸

The researches on acupoint property at modern times have been reviewed. Under the influence of TCM theory and modern technology, acupoint property is classified into generality, individuality and bidirectional regulation. It is affected mainly by acupoint compatibility, intervention measures, body state, etc. The research of acupoint property should be based on the connotation and clinical application of acupoint, adhere to the guidance of TCM theory, strengthen the exploration on the richness of acupoint property, implement the intersection of multi-disciplines to discover the specificity of acupoint, as well as investigate the relevant factors of acupoint property.

Acupuncture for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: An Overview of Systematic Reviews / 中国结合医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To evaluate the quality of the existing studies and summarize evidence of important outcomes of meta-analyses/systematic reviews (MAs/SRs) of CFS.@*METHODS@#Potentially eligible studies were searched in the following electronic databases from inception to 1 September, 2019: Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang Database (WF), Web of Science, Embase, PubMed and Cochrane Library. Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to evaluate the quality of evidence. The methodological quality of the literature was evaluated by A Measure Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews-2 (AMSTAR-2) and the quality of the report was assessed by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA). The intra-class correlation coefficient was used to assess the consistency of the reviewers, with an overall intraclass correlation coefficient score of 0.967.@*RESULTS@#Ten MAs/SRs were included. The overall conclusions were that acupuncture had good safety and efficacy in the treatment of CFS, but some of these results were contradictory. The GRADE indicated that out of the 17 outcomes, high-quality evidence was provided in 0 (0%), moderate in 3 (17.65%), low in 10 (58.82%), and very low in 4 (23.53%). The results of AMSTAR-2 showed that the methodological quality of all included studies was critically low. The PRISMA statement revealed that 8 articles (80%) were in line with 20 of the 27-item checklist, and 2 articles (20%) matched with 10-19 of the 27 items.@*CONCLUSION@#We found that acupuncture on treating CFS has the advantage for efficacy and safety, but the quality of SRs/MAs of acupuncture for CFS need to be improved.