Bee venom acupuncture for adhesive capsulitis: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Bee venom acupuncture has been used in treating patients with shoulder adhesive capsulitis, yet the effectiveness and safety remains unclear. Therefore, this systematic review will aim to assess the effectiveness and safety of bee venom acupuncture for shoulder adhesive capsulitis. METHODS: Electronic databases including EMBASE, PUBMED, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Wanfang Database, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database will be searched for relevant randomized controlled trials from their inception to the search data without language and publication status. Randomized controlled trials involving bee venom acupuncture for treating shoulder adhesive capsulitis will be included. The primary outcome will be pain visual analogue scale, and secondary outcomes include active and passive range of motions, shoulder pain and disability index. Meta-analysis will be conducted using Review Manager software (V.5.3). The results will be presented as risk ratio for dichotomous data, and standardized or weighted mean difference for continuous data. RESULTS: The results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed journal publication. CONCLUSION: These systematic review findings will provide an evidence of bee venom acupuncture for shoulder adhesive capsulitis, and help to inform clinical practitioners and policy-makers in the decision-making. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval and patient consent are not required as this study is a systematic review based on published articles.