Background: The pathogenesis of cervical spondylotic is degenerative changes of the cervical intervertebral disc, or bone hyperplasia of the posterior and hook joints, and instability of the joints of the cervical vertebrae. It causes the nerve roots to be stimulated and oppressed. The clinical manifestations are the sensation, movement, and reflex disorder of the cervical spinal nerve roots that are stimulated and oppressed, especially the numbness and pain of the neck, shoulders, upper limbs, and fingers. In this systematic review, we aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture and chiropractic in the treatment of cervical spondylotic.
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 Stata 13.0 software for meta-analysis of the effectiveness, recurrence rate, and symptom scores of cervical spondylotic.
Ethics and dissemination: This systematic review will evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture and chiropractic for cervical spondylotic. Because all of the data used in this systematic review and meta-analysis have been published, this review does not require ethical approval. Furthermore, all data will be analyzed anonymously during the review process trial.