Chaihu Longgu Muli Decoction for post-stroke insomnia: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Poststroke insomnia (PSI) is a frequent complication of stroke usually as a comorbidity of poststroke depression and mainly occurs within the first 6 months after stroke.[1] Addressing PSI to improve stroke prognosis is of great value. Herbal medicine like Chaihu Longgu Muli Decoction (CLMD), which is commonly considered to be a good treatment for depression and epilepsy, has the therapeutic potential on PSI; however, insufficient systematic reviews were conducted to testify its efficacy. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to provide reliable evidence of the efficacy and safety of CLMD on PSI and a foundation for further investigation. METHODS: The literature of clinical randomized controlled trials (RCTs) regarding CLMD for PSI published before June of 2021 will be retrieved in the databases, and 2 investigators will be asked to collect and crosscheck the data independently. For the including studies, the quality evaluation on methodology will be assessed in the light of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Review of Interventions V.5.1.0 as well as the quality of evidence will be evaluated by the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation. Besides, the assessment of heterogeneity and reporting bias, the sensitivity analysis and the subgroup analysis will be conducted. Stata 15 will be applied to analyze the above data. RESULTS: The review will conduct a high-quality synthesis on present evidence of CLMD for PSI. CONCLUSION: The conclusion of the study will indicate whether CLMD is effective and safe for PSI.

Effect of different acupuncture and moxibustion methods on functional dyspepsia caused by sequelae of COVID-19: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Functional dyspepsia (FD) is a group of diseases that cannot be explained after routine clinical examination, and is characterized by postprandial fullness, early satiety, and upper abdominal pain or burning. According to the statistics, FD continues to become one of the high-risk sequelae of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), affecting patients' quality of life, increasing psychological burden and increasing economic costs. However, its optimal treatment is still an urgent problem. A large number of studies have shown that acupuncture and moxibustion is effective and safe in the treatment of FD caused by sequelae of COVID-19, which is of research value. Therefore, based on the current literatures, the effectiveness and safety of different acupuncture and moxibustion methods were systematically evaluated to provide possible alternative therapy on FD. METHODS: Studies search for eligible randomized controlled trials that use different acupuncture and moxibustion methods as the sole treatment on FD and their data extraction will be done by 2 researchers. In case of disagreement, a third researcher will be introduced for arbitration. Mean difference or relative risk with fixed or random effect model in terms of 95% confidence interval will be adopted for the data synthesis. To evaluate the risk of bias, the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool will be utilized. The sensitivity or subgroup analysis will also be conducted when meeting high heterogeneity (I2 > 50%). RESULTS: This meta-analysis will provide an authentic synthesis of different acupuncture and moxibustion methods on FD caused by sequelae of COVID-19. CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis will evaluate the effect of acupuncture and moxibustion on FD caused by sequelae of COVID-19, providing evidence as to the treatment in these patients.

Clinical efficacy of different shoulder joint drug injections for rotator cuff injuries: A network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Rotator cuff injury is a common clinical disorder of the musculoskeletal system. It is one of the most common causes of shoulder pain and shoulder joint dysfunction. Intra-articular injection therapy is one of the common conservative treatments for rotator cuff injury in clinical practice, but scholars have been controversial about the different drugs used for injection therapy and their clinical effectiveness, and there is no complete agreement on the choice of different injectables, and the existing original studies are mostly direct comparisons in 1 arm, lacking indirect comparisons, making it difficult to have a clear and comprehensive understanding. OBJECTIVE: A network Meta-analysis was used to comprehensively compare the effectiveness of drug injection therapies for rotator cuff injuries. METHODS: The PubMed, The Cochrane Library, EMbase, Chinese national knowledge infrastructure, Chinese BioMedical Literature on disc, China Science and Technology Journal Database, and Wan-Fang databases were searched for randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of steroid injections for the comparative treatment of rotator cuff injury for the period April 19, 2013 to April 19, 2022 (the last decade). Two investigators independently screened the literature, extracted data according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated the quality of the literature in parallel. Statistical analysis was performed using Stata 16.0 software to compare the differences in efficacy of each treatment measure and rank the efficacy using the ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI) as the effect indicator. RESULTS: 10 RCTs with a total of 861 patients with rotator cuff injury were included, involving 4 therapeutic measures: corticosteroid injection therapy (COR), platelet-rich plasma injection therapy (PRP), Hyaluronic acid injection therapy (HA), and prolotherapy therapy (PRO).Meta-analysis results showed that the ranking results of the 4 therapeutic measures were: corticosteroid injection + hyaluronic acid injection > platelet-rich plasma injection + corticosteroid injection > corticosteroid injection > platelet-rich plasma injection > PRO > platelet-rich plasma injection + hyaluronic acid injection > hyaluronic acid injection. CONCLUSION: we recommend that corticosteroid injections combined with hyaluronic acid injections can be used for the non-surgical conservative clinical management of rotator cuff injuries.

Exploring the clinical efficacy of different nonsurgical rehabilitation interventions for humeral lateral epicondylitis: A protocol for network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Lateral epicondylitis is a common musculoskeletal disorder characterized by the decreased grip and upper limb strength and pain in the lateral aspect of the elbow joint. At present, shock wave, corticosteroid injection, platelet-rich plasma injection, and Dextrose prolotherapy therapy nonsurgical rehabilitation treatment methods are commonly used in clinical. However, the conclusions of studies comparing treatment efficacy between them are controversial, with most studies focusing on limited comparisons and a lack of direct and indirect comparisons between them, making it difficult to have a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of the efficacy between them. PURPOSE: To comprehensively compare the effectiveness of shockwave, corticosteroid injection, platelet-rich plasma injection, and Dextrose prolotherapy therapy for the treatment of external humeral lateral epicondylitis using a reticulo-meta-analysis. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of shock wave, corticosteroid injection, platelet-rich plasma injection, and Dextrose prolotherapy therapy for the treatment of external humeral lateral epicondylitis were searched in PubMed, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, and Wan-Fang databases for the period January 1, 2016 to January 1, 2021 for each database. Two investigators independently screened the literature, extracted data according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated the quality of the literature in parallel. Statistical analyses were performed using Stata 14.0 software to compare differences in efficacy between treatment measures using ratio and 95% confidence interval as effect indicators and to rank efficacy. RESULTS: Nine randomized controlled trials with a total of 289 patients with external humeral lateral epicondylitis were included, involving 4 nonsurgical rehabilitation measures and 6 intervention options. Quadrilateral ring to test the inconsistency of each closed-loop study finding, and the results show that the inconsistency factor was bounded at 1.65, with lower 95% confidence interval of 0.47 and 2.84 for both, which in summary indicates that the formation between the treatment measures in this study indicates that each closed-loop inconsistency was good. The SUCRA curve showed that platelet-rich plasma injection + shockwave was the first treatment with an area under the curve of 86.9%. Six treatment measures were ranked as follows: platelet-rich plasma injection + shockwave > platelet-rich plasma injection > shockwave > corticosteroid > corticosteroid + shockwave > prolotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: It is believed that in the course of clinical practice, platelet-rich plasma injection combined with shockwave therapy can be preferred for patients with humeral epicondylitis.

Acupuncturing of myofascial pain trigger points for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis of the knee is one of the major disorders leading to social dysfunction, economic loss and social development. This study was conducted to systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety effectiveness of acupuncture inactivation of myofascial pain trigger points in the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee. METHODS: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) on the treatment of knee pain were searched by computer from PubMed, The Cochrane Library, China journal full-text database (CNKI), Chinese biomedical literature database (CBM), China academic journal database (Wanfang Data) databases from the date of creation to December 2021, and the data were analyzed by Reman 5.3 software for data analysis. RESULTS: A total of 724 patients from 9 RCTs were finally included, and the results of meta-analysis showed that the acupuncture myofascial pain trigger point group was better than the control group in terms of total effective rate, cure rate, VAS score, Lysholm score, and WOMAC score. CONCLUSION: The efficacy and safety of acupuncturing myofascial pain trigger points in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis is positive, but due to the limited number of literature included in this study and the low quality of the included literature, there is still a need for high-quality and large sample size RCTs for the analysis of this treatment option.

Auricular acupuncture for shoulder pain: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Shoulder pain is a common problem in outpatient medical practice. Recent studies show that acupuncture has therapeutic effect on releasing symptoms of shoulder pain. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to access the efficacy and safety of auricular acupuncture for shoulder pain. METHODS: Eight databases will be searched for randomized controlled trials of auricular acupuncture in the treatment of shoulder pain with retrieval time up to September 2020, including PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, Web of science, CNKI, VIP, CBM, and Wangfang Data databases. We will evaluate the methodological quality of the included studies by using Cochrane Risk of Bias tool and conduct data analysis with Review Manager Software. RESULTS: The results of this study will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed journal publication. CONCLUSION: The systematic review will provide up-to-date evidence for the efficacy and safety of auricular acupuncture in treating shoulder pain. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD 42021238797.