Efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia: A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: It is simple, convenient, inexpensive, proven, extensive, and safe for acupuncture in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). However, there are no comparisons between various acupuncture therapies that can directly and effectively provide specific guidance to clinicians. The development of a guideline for the optimization of acupuncture for PHN is of great importance for the development of clinical acupuncture. Therefore, we attempted to design a study protocol for a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for PHN to provide evidence to support the treatment of acupuncture for PHN. METHODS: A search of 8 databases, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Wanfang, China Biomedical Literature Database, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science, was conducted to collect randomized controlled trials about acupuncture for PHN. RevMan 5.3 and Stata 14.0 software were used for data analysis. RESULTS: This meta-analysis will provide additional and more robust evidence for acupuncture treatment of PHN. Our findings will assist clinicians in making treatment decisions. CONCLUSION: This study will provide comprehensive and reliable evidence-based evidence for the treatment of PHN with acupuncture.