Table 1.

Baseline characteristics.

		Number of cases		Gender (male/female)		Age		Duration of disease (m)
Study	Research type	Experimental group	Control group	Experimental group	Control group	Experimental group	Control group	Experimental group	Control group	Types of acupuncture and moxibustion	Pain assessment scale
Xiong 2007[20]	RCT	48	40	20/28	16/24	50 ± 6	48 ± 6	/	/	Fire needle	/
Jin 2009[21]	RCT	30	25	17/13	12/13	52	48.5	/	/	Acupuncture	/
Ma 2010[22]	RCT	20	20	18/22	56.2	6.5	Fire needle	/
Teng 2014[23]	RCT	48	48	53/43	/	/	/	/	Fire needle	/
Zheng 2014[24]	RCT	32	30	13/19	13/17	45.78 ± 15.28	46.30 ± 14.40	4.53 ± 1.74(d)	4.60 ± 1.69(d)	Fire needle	/
Li 2014[25]	RCT	30	30	17/13	15/15	61.7	60.2	9.5	8.3	Electroacupuncture	/
Zhang 2015[26]	RCT	36	36	22/14	19/17	62.06 ± 7.34	62.18 ± 7.16	3.51 ± 2.31	3.42 ± 2.55	Fire needle	/
Wu 2017[27]	RCT	39	39	18/21	17/22	59.5	61.5	1-12	1-12	Fire needle	/
Wang 2019[28]	RCT	39	39	20/19	22/17	58.3 ± 3.2	59.1 ± 2.8	4.2 ± 1.3	4.0 ± 1.4	Fire needle	VAS
Tang 2019[29]	RCT	30	30	11/19	13/17	59.5 ± 10.3	61.67 ± 8.2	/	/	Acupuncture	VAS
Han 2020[30]	RCT	55	55	28/27	29/26	47.22 ± 8.54	46.14 ± 8.62	/	/	Fire needle	/
Zhang 2020[31]	RCT	32	32	12/20	14/18	53.72 ± 15.17	54.25 ± 11.19	/	/	Fire needle	/
Li 2010[32]	RCT	36	31	15/11	12/19	43.67 ± 14.64	46.45 ± 15.27	/	/	Electroacupuncture	/
Chen 2020[33]	RCT	30	30	16/14	17/13	53.67 ± 5.19	55.07 ± 4.85	5.79 ± 1.30	5.38 ± 1.28	Electroacupuncture	VAS
Huang 2020[34]	RCT	45	45	24/21	22/23	65.8 ± 2.9	65.9 ± 2.7	7.8 ± 1.2	7.9 ± 1.5	Electroacupuncture	VAS
Ming 2020[35]	RCT	30	30	13/17	11/19	54.52 ± 4.97	54.32 ± 5.47	3.26 ± 1.08	2.93 ± 1.15	Acupuncture	/