Background. Clinical investigators have found that the use of needling in the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) has a good clinical application prospect in recent years. However, these studies were insufficient to provide evidence for the efficacy and safety of simple-needling for AS. So, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of simple-needling for treating AS. Methods. We searched the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Wangfang database (Wanfang), Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database (VIP), and any other gray literature sources for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that used simple-needling to treat AS before June 2019 with the language restriction of Chinese and English. Researchers evaluated the retrieved literature studies and extracted valid data according to relevant requirements and used RevMan5.3 software for meta-analysis. Results. A total of 10 studies were included, all of which were Chinese literature studies, involving 729 patients. Compared with the control groups, simple-needling groups had a better effect on the clinical effective rate (RR = 1.20, 95% CI (1.11, 1.29), P<0.00001), TCM syndrome score (MD = −5.26, 95% CI (−5.99, −4.53), P<0.00001), symptom score (MD = −8.08, 95% CI (−10.18, −5.97), P<0.00001), and Schober test outcome (MD = 0.39, 95% CI (0.15, 0.64), P=0.002). Sensibility analysis was based on the leave-one-out cross-validation procedure, and the results showed no significant changes. Most studies did not describe adverse reactions. The funnel plot suggested publication bias on clinical effectiveness. Conclusions. This systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrated that simple-needling was effective as an intervention for AS. However, due to the low quality of the methodology of included studies, the designs of clinical trials were not rigorously standardized. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out multiquality RCTs for verification.

Background:Needling and ibuprofen are often used clinically to treat primary dysmenorrhea (PD). However, the difference between the efficacy and safety of the treatment of PD is not clear. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of simple-needling for PD patients through a comparison with ibuprofen.Methods:A comprehensive search of 7 electronic databases and relevant medical journals, from the establishment of the publication to December 2020. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was used to evaluate the methodological quality of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) that met the inclusion criteria, and a meta-analysis was performed with the Review Manager version (RevMan version 5.3).Results:Twenty three RCTs were included. The meta-analysis reported that simple-needling groups had better than ibuprofen groups on cure rate (relative risk = 2.29, 95% CI [1.96, 2.68], P < .00001) and total effective rate (relative risk = 1.24, 95% CI [1.19, 1.29], P < .00001) and VAS score (MD = −1.24, 95% CI [−1.92, −0.55], P = .0004). Seven studies reported adverse events, of which 4 studies had mild adverse events.Conclusion:Simple-needling is superior to ibuprofen treatment in terms of clinical efficacy and improvement of pain symptoms. A small number of studies reported whether simple-needling produced adverse events, so there is not enough evidence to support the safety of simple-needling in the treatment of PD.PROSPERO registration number:CRD42021233403