Acupuncture improves postoperative symptoms of pigmented villonodular synovitis: A protocol for systematic review and meta analysis

BACKGROUND: Pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS) is a benign proliferative disease of synovial joint, synovial sac and tendon sheath. PVNS is usually treated by surgery, but postoperative joint dysfunction and pain will be accompanied, which seriously affects the quality of life. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of this intervention in patients with pain and dysfunction caused by postoperative symptoms of PVNS. METHODS: We will search the EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Database, the Chongqing VIP (VIP), the US National Institute of Health, the NIH clinical registry Clinical Trials, the ICTRP, and the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry and the Chinese clinical registry, from their inception to 1st July 2020. Randomized controlled trials that include patients with postoperative symptoms of pigmented villonodular synovitis receiving acupuncture therapy versus a control group will be included. The selection of studies, data extraction and risk of bias assessment will be conducted by 2 independent researchers. A third review author resolved disagreements. The dichotomous data will be presented as risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and the continuous data will be presented as weighted mean differences or standardized mean differences with 95% CIs. Evidence quality will be evaluated using the GRADE system. RESULTS: The results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed journal publication. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review will provide updated evidence of various types of acupuncture specifically focuses on its effectiveness and safety for patients’ pain and dysfunction caused by post-operation of pigmented villonodular synovitis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not necessary as this review will not require data from individual patients. The results of this will be published through peer-reviewed journal articles or conference presentations. REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework (OSF). 2020, July 7. 10.17605/OSF.IO/CZW9P.