Effects of acupuncture in the treatment of occipital neuralgia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Acupuncture is used to treat subjects with occipital neuralgia, which is 1 of the main causes of occipital pain; however, its effect is conflicting. Hence, the current study aims to evaluate the effects of acupuncture in the treatment of occipital neuralgia.Methods: In a systematic search of PubMed, Embase, OVID, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Wanfang databases, and Google Scholar until July 2021, 15 studies aimed to evaluate the effects of acupuncture in the treatment of occipital neuralgia were included. Human-related trials were considered in different languages. The size of the study was not considered a limit for its inclusion and the study intervention should focus on comparing the impact of acupuncture in the intervention group compared with the control group.The odds ratio (OR) and the mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated with a random or fixedeffect model for different subgroup analyses. Publication bias was assessed using the Egger test, while the risk of bias was assessed using the Review manager software.Results: Acupuncture had a significantly higher effective rate of treatment (OR, 5.40; 95% CI, 2.48 to 11.77, P < .001) compared to control in the treatment of occipital neuralgia and lower visual analogue scale (MD, −2.45; 95% CI, −2.69 to −2.21, P < .001). Acupuncture plus medication had a significantly higher effective rate of treatment (OR, 3.96; 95% CI, 2.10 to 7.47, P < .001) compared to medication in the treatment of occipital neuralgia. Acupuncture analysis for safety issues showed a significant reduction of adverse events compared with the medication group. Conclusion:Acupuncture alone or acupuncture plus medication had a significantly beneficial effect on the effective rate of treatment, safety and visual analog scale compared to medication in the treatment of occipital neuralgia. Further studies are required to validate these findings.

The Effectiveness and Safety of Acupuncture on Occipital Neuralgia: A Study Protocol for Systematic Review and/or Meta-Analysis

“…Additionally, few serious adverse events have been reported [10]. Two previous systematic reviews (SRs) have examined the role of acupuncture on and revealed that acupuncture treatment (either acupuncture alone or in combination with other therapies compared with control therapies) was generally associated with improved pain symptoms and better effective rate (ER) [11,12].…”

“…First, these previous studies had several limitations. One study included (a) patients with postherpetic neuralgia and migraine as well as ON, which limit the generalizability of the findings, and (b) non-randomized trials, as well as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), which hinder causal inference [11]. Another study had an ideal methodology and impressive results, but it included most recent RCT was published in 2016 [12].…”