Manual Acupuncture or Combination with Vitamin B to Treat Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

METHODS: Randomized controlled trials on manual acupuncture treatment of DPN were retrieved from the Medline, Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CNKI, WanFang, and VIP databases. Extracted research data were summarized in the tables, and methodological assessment was performed using the risk-of-bias assessment tool of Cochrane. Meta-analysis was performed by Revman 5.3, Stata 14.0, and TSA 0.9.5.10 Beta software. RESULTS: A total of 18 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) were recruited: (1) 11 RCTs were acupuncture alone compared with vitamin B; (2) 7 RCTs were acupuncture combined with vitamin B compared with vitamin B, involving 1200 participants. Acupuncture alone improved clinical efficacy (P < 0.05) and nerve conduction velocity of the four peripheral nerves: peroneal nerve, tibial nerve, median nerve, and ulnar nerve (P < 0.05), but there was no significant difference between the group of acupuncture alone and the group of vitamin B (P = 0.36 > 0.05) in improving median nerve SCV (sensory nerve conduction velocity). Acupuncture combined with vitamin B improved clinical efficacy and nerve conduction velocity of the three peripheral nerves, peroneal nerve, tibial nerve, and median nerve (P < 0.05), and decreased the scores of the Toronto clinical scoring system (TCSS) (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Acupuncture alone and vitamin B combined with acupuncture are more effective in treating DPN compared to vitamin B. However, more high-quality RCTs on vitamin B combined with acupuncture are required to confirm our results.

[The including and recommendation of acupuncture in NGC and NICE].

The diseases recommended to be treated by acupuncture and the recommendation in the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) were summarized, and the diseases recommended were analyzed. The guidelines which mentioned acupuncture in NICE and NGC were searched and classified according to the types of diseases and intensity of recommendations. As a result, 45 guidelines in NGC were included, involving 59 recommendations; 29 guidelines in the NICE, involving 29 recommendations. The diseases recommended by NICE and NGC were mainly pain-related diseases, and the diseases recommended by NGC were wider. However, both needed to further describe the specific operation methods of acupuncture.