Acupuncture Times Read the latest acupuncture research articles about acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, cupping therapy and moxibustion.
Related Articles
Background: Primary trigeminal neuralgia is a clinical refractory disorder characterized by excruciating pain that severely impacts the quality of life. Several studies have shown that acupuncture can improve primary trigeminal neuralgia pain. However, the comparative efficacy and safety of acupuncture are unknown. Herein, a systematic review was conducted to compare the efficacy and safety of various acupuncture methods for primary trigeminal neuralgia treatment.
Methods: Relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published up to 1 August 2021 were obtained from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science Core Collection, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, CQVIP Database, Wanfang Database, Allied and Alternative Medicine Database, and related registration platforms.
Two authors independently selected the studies and obtained data. Cochrane Handbook was used to assess the methodological quality. We put the pain relief as the primary outcome and the response rate and adverse events as the secondary outcomes. Review Manager v5.3, ADDIS v1.16.8, and STATA v15.0 software were used for data analysis. The intraclass correlation coefficient was used to assess the consistency of the two investigators.
Results: A total of 58 RCTs with 4,126 participants were obtained. The meta-analysis indicated that five acupuncture methods were superior to conventional medicine (carbamazepine) in pain reduction intensity and response rate. Meanwhile, electronic acupuncture plus manual acupuncture was the most effective therapy since it reduced pain intensity in 11 methods and improved the response rate in 10 interventions. Moreover, six interventions had acceptable adverse events, and none of the included studies reported severe adverse events. However, most pieces of evidence were ranked as critically low.
Conclusion: These findings show that acupuncture methods can be effective and safe for primary trigeminal neuralgia. Moreover, electronic acupuncture plus manual acupuncture maybe the best acupuncture treatment for primary trigeminal neuralgia and should be administered to primary trigeminal neuralgia patients.
Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35237333/