Table 1.

Characteristics of direct clinical studies evaluating fire dragon cupping therapy for primary dysmenorrhea.

Study title	Reference	Design	Sample	Intervention and comparator	Key outcomes	Limitations
The efficacy of Fire Dragon cupping combined with Shaofu Zhuyu decoction in treating primary dysmenorrhea with cold coagulation and blood stasis	Yang et al. (2025) (15)	Retrospective comparative	112 (58 vs 54)	FDCT + Shaofu Zhuyu Decoction vs Shaofu Zhuyu Decoction alone	Lower post-treatment pain and TCM syndrome scores, RI, PI, and ET-1; higher NO; reported between-group comparisons P < 0.05	Non-randomized allocation; active herbal co-intervention; FDCT-specific effect cannot be isolated
Clinical observation of Fire Dragon cupping therapy in primary dysmenorrhea	Wang et al. (2021) (7)	Observational	NR	FDCT; comparator NR	Pain/symptom improvement reported	Protocol, comparator, and numerical data insufficient for reliable causal interpretation
Effect of dragon cupping therapy on primary dysmenorrhea	Zhong et al. (2021) (13)	Non-randomized	NR	Dragon/FDCT-based cupping; comparator NR	Pain/symptom improvement reported	Intervention, comparator, and outcome details insufficient for reliable causal interpretation

FDCT, Fire Dragon Cupping Therapy; TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine; VAS, Visual Analog Scale; RI, resistance index; PI, pulsatility index; ET-1, endothelin-1; NO, nitric oxide; NR, not reported.