Acupuncture and moxibustion for chronic urticaria: an umbrella systematic review
Description
Background: Urticaria is a common skin disease, clinical itching, wheals, (or with) angioedema as the main manifestations, if urticaria frequent attacks and the duration of the disease more than 6 weeks is chronic urticaria (CU), the prevalence of the population in the 1% ~1.5%. At present, modern medicine is primarily focused on symptomatic treatments. Acupuncture and moxibustion have been shown to be effective treatments for CU in numerous clinical trials. In recent years, a number of systematic reviews have been published on the use of moxibustion and acupuncture for CU, however the results are not totally consistent. Objective: To assess the quality of the evidence, reporting, and methodology of systematic reviews on acupuncture and moxibustion for CU. Methods: The methodological quality, reporting quality, and evidence quality were assessed using A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR 2), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020), and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE), in that order. Results: AMSTAR 2 results indicate that all studies are "critically low." According to PRISMA 2020, one study had severely deficient reporting quality, while six studies had slightly inadequate reporting quality. The GRADE results revealed that there were three of "low" grade and fifteen of "very low" quality. Conclusion: The majority of the included systematic reviews interpreted the findings to suggest that acupuncture is beneficial for CU. Keywords: chronic urticaria; acupuncture; moxibustion; complementary therapy; systematic review; meta-analysis.