Moxibustion for stroke: Systematic review, meta-analysis, and GRADE-based recommendations

Moxibustion is one of the most commonly used interventions in traditional medicine in East Asia, but only few published clinical practice guidelines mention this therapy. This study aimed to systematically review currently available literature and to provide evidence-based recommendations for moxibu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of integrative medicine 2018-06, Vol.20, p.115-125
Main Authors: Han, Chang-ho, Ma, Jun Nan, An, Nawon, Yoon, Sul Gi, Kim, Mikyung
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical practice guideline
GRADE
Meta-analysis
Moxibustion
Stroke
Systematic review
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Summary:Moxibustion is one of the most commonly used interventions in traditional medicine in East Asia, but only few published clinical practice guidelines mention this therapy. This study aimed to systematically review currently available literature and to provide evidence-based recommendations for moxibustion as an adjunctive therapy for stroke. PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, and two Korean domestic databases were searched from their inception to 25 January 2017 to identify randomised controlled trials. The included trials assessed the effect of moxibustion for neurological deficit or activity of daily living (ADL) in patients with stroke. Meta-analysis from the post-treatment values of the outcome measures and review of all the reported adverse events were performed. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation Methodology (GRADE) was applied to convert the evidence from the quantitative analysis into recommendations for clinical practices. Among the 1121 articles searched from the databases, 45 were finally used for meta-analysis. According to currently available evidence, additional moxibustion may be considered to improve the neurological deficit and ADL of patients with stroke. Moxibustion may be effective as an adjunctive treatment for patients with stroke. Therefore, we recommend to consider moxibustion as an optional intervention to improve neurological deficits and ADL in stroke patients. Further research is warranted to fully reflect the use of moxibustion in real-world clinical practice and include clinical trials with a better methodological quality.
ISSN:1876-3820
1876-3839
DOI:10.1016/j.eujim.2018.04.008