Acupoint injection of Bacillus Calmette–Guerin polysaccharide nucleic acid for patients with chronic urticaria: A protocol for systematic review

BACKGROUND: To investigate the efficacy and safety of acupoint injection of Bacillus Calmette–Guerin polysaccharide nucleic acid (BCG-PSN) in the treatment of chronic urticaria (CU). METHODS: The following databases will be searched from their inception: Medline, Embase, Pubmed, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, China Biomedical Literature Database, China Science Journal Database, and Wanfang Database. All databases will be searched from the date of creation until October 2019. In addition, we will manually search the list of medical journals as a supplement. The scope of the search included randomized controlled clinical studies related to acupoint injection of BCG-PSN for CU. The primary outcome is the disease activity control. Secondary outcomes include response rate, adverse events, and recurrence rates. The Cochrane RevMan V5.3 Deviation Assessment Tool will be used to assess bias assessment risk, data integration risk, meta-analysis risk, and subgroup analysis risk (if conditions are met). The average difference, standard mean difference and binary data will be used to represent continuous results. RESULTS: This study will comprehensively review the existing evidence on the treatment of CU by acupoint injection of BCG-PSN. CONCLUSION: This systematic review will provide a judgment basis for the effectiveness and safety of acupoint injection of BCG-PSN in the treatment of CU. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO, CRD42019139885.