Acupuncture for postoperative pain of lumbar disc herniation: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Evidence for the effects of acupuncture on postoperative pain of Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) is inconsistent. We conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture for postoperative pain of LDH. We performed a comprehensive search on PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central, and four Chinese databases (CNKI, Wan Fang, CBMdisc, and VIP) for articles published before September 2021. The data extraction table was made for the ten included studies, and the risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane collaboration tool, followed by statistical analysis using RevMan 5.3. A total of ten studies involving 838patients were included. The statistical meta-analysis showed that acupuncture treatment was significantly better than drugs in improving cure rate (OR = 2.24, 95% CI = [1.58, 3.19], P