Introduction: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the microvascular complications of diabetes (DM). Proteinuria is the most important clinical feature of DN and an independent risk factor for the progression of DN. Therefore, reducing urinary protein is the primary goal of DN treatment. Acupuncture has long been widely used in the treatment of DN. Therefore, this paper conducted a meta-analysis of the clinical efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of DN proteinuria, in order to comprehensively analyze the role of acupuncture in the treatment of DN.
Methods and analysis: We will search for PubMed, Cochrane Library, AMED, EMbase, WorldSciNet; Nature, Science online and China Journal Full-text Database (CNKI), China Biomedical Literature CD-ROM Database (CBM), and related randomized controlled trials included in the China Resources Database. The time is limited from the construction of the library to September 2019.We will use the criteria provided by Cochrane 5.1.0 for quality assessment and risk assessment of the included studies, and use the Revman 5.3 and Stata13.0 software for meta-analysis of the effectiveness, recurrence rate, and symptom scores of DN proteinuria.
Ethics and dissemination: This systematic review will evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for DN proteinuria. Because all of the data used in this systematic review and meta-analysis has been published, this review does not require ethical approval. Furthermore, all data will be analyzed anonymously during the review process Trial.
Trial registration number: PROSPERO CRD42019139705.