The safety and efficacy of acupuncture for erectile dysfunction: A network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Erectile dysfunction is a common male disease, the constant pace of life, increasing pressure on life, and changes in diet, living environment, lifestyle, etc., lead to an increase in the number of patients with erectile dysfunction (ED). Acupuncture has been widely used in clinical trials of ED in recent years. There are many clinical trials that confirm that acupuncture can improve male erectile function. This study used a network meta-analysis (NMA) to compare the effectiveness and safety of different forms of acupuncture on ED. METHODS: We will search for PubMed, Cochrane Library, AMED, EMBASE, WorldSciNet; Nature, Science online and China Journal Full-text Database (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), China Biomedical Literature CD-ROM Database (CBM), and related randomized controlled trials (RCTs) included in the China Resources Database. The time is limited from the construction of the library to December 2018. The quality of the included RCTs will be evaluated with the risk of bias tool and evidence will be evaluated by Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation. STATA 13.0 and WinBUGS 1.4.3 through the GeMTC package will be used to perform an NMA to synthesize direct and indirect evidence.