Fire Needling Acupuncture for Adult Patients with Acute Herpes Zoster: Protocol of a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Lu Liu; Qiuyi Chen; Jiwei Yang; Weijuan Gang; Luopeng Zhao; Tianli Lyu; Xianghong Jing; Claire Shuiqing Zhang; Bin Li

doi:10.2147/JPR.S370484

Fire Needling Acupuncture for Adult Patients with Acute Herpes Zoster: Protocol of a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

J Pain Res. 2022 Aug 2:15:2161-2170. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S370484. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Lu Liu¹, Qiuyi Chen¹, Jiwei Yang², Weijuan Gang², Luopeng Zhao¹, Tianli Lyu¹, Xianghong Jing², Claire Shuiqing Zhang³, Bin Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Capital Medical University, Beijing Key Laboratory of Acupuncture Neuromodulation, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
² Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
³ School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

Abstract

Background: Acute herpes zoster (HZ) is characterized as a vesicular rash with unilateral distribution produced by the reactivation of varicella zoster virus. It can induce various comorbidities that can adversely influence the quality of life of patients. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess the effect and safety of fire needling acupuncture on acute HZ.

Methods: Three English databases (PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) and four Chinese Databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database, Chongqing VIP database, and China Biology Medicine database) will be searched from their inceptions to July 2022. Randomized controlled trials investigating fire needling acupuncture therapy for acute HZ will be included, regardless of publication status. Two reviewers will independently conduct the study screening, data extraction, and research quality assessments. The primary outcome measures are the Pain Visual Analogue Scale and the occurrence of postherpetic neuralgia. Secondary outcomes measures are the evaluation of skin lesions, time to resolution of pain, tolerance evaluation, total effective rate, adverse events and changes in inflammatory and immune suppression markers in peripheral plasma. All included studies will be assessed for methodological quality via the Cochrane Collaboration's bias risk assessment tool. Meta-analyses will be undertaken using Review Manager V.5.3 software. The findings will be reported as the risk ratio of the binary data and the mean difference (MD) or standardized MD of the continuous data. Subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses will be conducted where appropriate. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation will be used to assess evidence certainty.

Results: From the study, we will ascertain the effects and safety of fire needling acupuncture on acute HZ.

Conclusion: This study will validate the effects and safety of fire needling acupuncture in the management of acute HZ, generating new evidence to guide acupuncture interventions for acute HZ in the future.

Registration number: PROSPERO CRD42020199047.

Keywords: fire needling acupuncture; herpes zoster; postherpetic neuralgia; randomized controlled trials; systematic review.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by China National Natural Science Foundation (82074179), China Association for Science and Technology Young Talent Lifting Project (2019-2021ZGZJXH-QNRC001), Beijing Municipal Education Commission Science and Technology Plan General Project (KM202110025005), Capital health development scientific research project Excellent Young Talents (Capital development 2020-4-2236), National Key Research and Development Plan (2019YFC1709703), and National Administration of Traditional Chinese medicine: 2019 Project of building evidence-based practice capacity for TCM (2019XZZX-ZJ002).