Table 1.
Summary of systematic review studies of warm needle acupuncture for knee osteoarthritis.
| First author (year) [ref] | Data search | Number of trials included (total sample size) | Intervention | Comparator | Outcomes | Direction of effect* | Overall risk of bias of primary studies | Methodological quality of SRs (AMSTAR 2) | Conclusion (Quote) | AEs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feng (2019) (25) | Jun 2018 | 8 (582) | WA | WM | Total effective rate | + | Jadad (High) | Critically low | … positive effective… | No |
| Guo (2018) (26) | Oct 2017 | 11 (930) | WA | WM | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Critically low | …effective… | No |
| (2) WOMAC | (2) + | |||||||||
| Lu (2015) (27) | Dec 2014 | 8 (811) | WA | WM | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Jadad (High) | Critically low | …conclude be an effect... | Yes |
| (2) AEs | (2) + | |||||||||
| Kong (2019) (28) | Mar 2018 | 21 (1810) | WA + WM | WM | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Low | … improve the efficiency… | No |
| (2) Pain (VAS) | (2) + | |||||||||
| (3) WOMAC | (3) + | |||||||||
| (4) LKSS | (4) + | |||||||||
| Cao (2019) (29) | Mar 2018 | 9 (807) | WA + WM | WM | Total effective rate | + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Critically low | …effect… | No |
| Jun (2022) (12) | May 2022 | 66 (6231) | WA orWA + WM | WM | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Moderate | …have some distinct advantage… | Yes |
| (2) Pain | (2) +/– | |||||||||
| (3) Function | (3) +/– | |||||||||
| (4) QoL | (4) + | |||||||||
| Jiang (2019) (30) | Jul 2018 | 20 (18 RCT, 2 CCT) (1719) | WA + WM | WM | Total effective rate | + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Critically low | …significant effect… | Yes |
| Chen (2019) (31) | Jul 2018 | 19 (1943) | WA orWA + WM | No limited(TDP, WM) | (1) Pain (VAS) | (1) + | n.r. | Critically low | …can increase efficacy… | No |
| (2) WOMAC total | (2) + | |||||||||
| Huang (2021) (32) | Feb 2020 | 18 (1209) | WA | No limited(AT, EA, Moxa, WM) | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Low | …effective… | No |
| (2) Pain (VAS) | (2) + | |||||||||
| (3) WOMAC | (3) + | |||||||||
| Luo (2019) (33) | Oct 2017 | 10 (819) | WA | No limited (AT, EA, Moxa, WM) | Total effective rate | + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Critically low | … positive effective… | Yes |
| Jin (2022) (34) | Oct 2021 | 8 (399) | WM | TCM | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Cochrane ROB (High) | Low | … better overall… efficacy | No |
| (2) Pain (VAS) | (2) + | |||||||||
| (3) WOMAC | (3) + | |||||||||
| Li (2021) (35) | Dec 2019 | 17 (1515) | WA | AT or EA | (1) Total effective rate | (1) +/– | Cochrane ROB (High) | Low | …superior to EA… | Yes |
| (2) Pain (VAS) | (2) – | |||||||||
| (3) WOMAC | (3) +/– | |||||||||
| (4) LKSS | (4) – | |||||||||
| Zhang (2018) (36) | Jun 2018 | 12 (1176) | WA | AT or EA | (1) Total effective rate | (1) + | Jadad (High) | Critically low | …no…significant difference… | No |
| (2) Pain (VAS) | (2)– | |||||||||
| (3) WOMAC | (3) – | |||||||||
| (4) LKSS | (4) + | |||||||||
| Ou (2018) (37) | Jul 2017 | 7 (530) | WA | AT | Total effective rate | + | Jadad (High) | Critically low | … positive effective… | No |
| Wu (2016) (38) | Nov 2014 | 11 (772) | WA | EA | (1) Total effective rate | (1)– | Jadad (High) | Critically low | … is not superior to that of EA... | No |
| (2) Pain (VAS) | (2)– | |||||||||
| (3) WOMAC | (3)– |
AT, acupuncture; AEs, adverse events; CCT, controlled clinical trials; HM, herbal medicine; IA, intra-articular injection; LKSS, Lysholm score; KOA, knee osteoarthritis; n.r., not reported; RCT, randomized controlled trials; ROB, risk of bias; VAS, visual analog scale; WA, warm acupuncture; western medicine; WOMAC, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis index.
*Total effective rate = (number of markedly effective cases + number of effective cases)/total cases.
*Relied on the original author’s judgment, (+): overall positive; (−): negative; (+/−): unclear.