Acupuncture and moxibustion for diminished ovarian reserve: A scoping review.

OBJECTIVE: Diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) refers to the decreased number and quality of oocytes in the ovary. Acupuncture and moxibustion has a certain effect on DOR; however, the number of studies and reports of research evidence are limited. This study aimed to conduct a scoping review of the clinical research status of acupuncture and moxibustion for treating patients with DOR. METHOD: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Excerpta Medica database, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, Chinese Biological Medicine, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, and Wanfang database were searched from January 2010 to May 2022 using keywords and medical subject heading terms. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, relevant studies were selected. Structured tables and descriptive charts were made to visually express research features by using Excel, Original, IBM SPSS Model 18.0, Adobe Illustrator and other software packages. Report quality was evaluated for Cochrane bias using Review Manager 5.3. RESULTS: Overall, 851 studies were identified; of these, 90 met the inclusion criteria. The results extracted from these studies were classified into four categories: research characteristics, study type, acupuncture and moxibustion prescriptions, and efficacy observation. CONCLUSIONS: The quality assessment of acupuncture and moxibustion for DOR is not ideal. Therefore, standardisation and normalisation should be strengthened, and high-quality evidence is needed to further demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. Due to heterogeneity in DOR diagnosis, the observation index should be updated with reference to the latest research to improve efficacy evaluation.

Efficacy and safety of acupuncture in treating acute low back pain: a systematic review and bayesian network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Acute low back pain (ALBP) is common and acupuncture therapy is a treatment option. The comparative efficacy and safety of different acupuncture therapies are still unclear. The aim of this network meta-analysis (NMA) was to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of different acupuncture therapies for ALBP. METHODS: We performed a systematic search in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP Database, Wanfang Database, and Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM). The outcome indicators measured were visual analog scale (VAS) score, lumbar range of motion (ROM) score, and adverse events. The risk of bias among included studies was assessed with the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. WinBUGS 1.4 was used for the NMA. RESULTS: In total, nineteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comprising 1,427 participants were included. Results of NMA showed the following: (I) compared with placebo, motion style acupuncture (MSA) (SMD: -2.21; 95% CI, -3.33 to -1.08), manual acupuncture (MA) (SMD: -1.14; 95% CI, -2.01 to -0.27), and electroacupuncture (EA) (SMD: -1.57; 95% CI, -2.98 to -0.15) were found to be more effective for decreasing VAS score; (II) compared with pharmacotherapy, MSA (SMD: -1.00; 95% CI, -1.47 to -0.54) and MA (SMD: -0.60; 95% CI, -1.15 to -0.05) were found to be more effective in reducing ROM score. Results of the surface under the cumulative ranking curve indicated that all acupuncture types were superior to placebo or pharmacotherapy in lowering VAS and ROM score. It was noted that MSA was the most effective treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicated that acupuncture therapy achieved good therapeutic effects in the treatment of ALBP, especially MSA therapy. Nevertheless, due to the low quality of the included trials, the credibility of our conclusions is low. Further well-designed RCTs with high quality and large samples are still needed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture therapy for ALBP.