Introduction
Review question / Objective: P: pelvic pain
associated with EMs; I: acupuncture; C:
non-penetrating needles; O: reduce the
pain level.
Condition being studied: The usage of
acupuncture for pelvic pain caused by
endometriosis is common, although
studies have not been conducted to
establish its effectiveness. Hence, we will
conduct a systematic review to assess the
INPLASY 1
International Platform of Registered Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Protocols
INPLASY
PROTOCOL
Efficacy of Acupuncture for Pelvic
Pain associated with Endometriosis
in Women: A protocol for systematic
review and meta-analysis
Xu, LX1; Sun, P2; Yan, DM3; Tu, B4.
To cite: Xu et al. Efficacy of
Acupuncture for Pelvic Pain
associated with Endometriosis
in Women: A protocol for
systematic review and meta-
analysis. Inplasy protocol
202330006. doi:
10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006
Received: 03 March 2023
Published: 03 March 2023
Review question / Objective: P: pelvic pain associated with
EMs; I: acupuncture; C: non-penetrating needles; O: reduce
the pain level.
Condition being studied: The usage of acupuncture for pelvic
pain caused by endometriosis is common, although studies
have not been conducted to establish its e ffectiveness.
Hence, we will conduct a systematic review to assess the
effectiveness of acupuncture in treating endometriosis-
related pelvicpain.
Eligibility criteria: Study participants were eligible based on
the following criteria: 1) 18-45 years old; 2) following
menarche; 3) complete uterus and at least one ovary; 4) all
patients had EMs
INPLASY registration number: This protocol was registered with
the International Platform of Registered Systematic Review and
Meta-Analysis Protocols (INPLASY) on 03 March 2023 and was
last updated on 03 March 2023 (registration number
INPLASY202330006).
Corresponding author:
lingxia xu
[email protected]
Author Affiliation:
Academician Workstation,
Jiangxi University of Chinese
Medicine, Nanchang, Jiangxi,
China.
Support: Nos.2019XZZX-
LG005.
Review Stage at time of this
submission: The review has
not yet started.
Conflicts of interest:
None declared.
Xu et al. Inplasy protocol 202330006. doi:10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006
Xu et al. Inplasy protocol 202330006. doi:10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006 Downloaded from https://inplasy.com/inplasy-2023-3-0006/
effectiveness of acupuncture in treating
endometriosis-related pelvicpain.
Methods
Search strategy: From the following seven
databases, studies were extracted to
February 2023: PubMed, EMBASE, web of
science, Cochrane Library, China National
Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wan
Fang Database (WanFang), sinomed and
Weipu Database for Chinese Technical
Periodicals (VIP). We searched the
international and Chinese clinical trial
registration platforms up to February 2023.
P a r t i c i p a n t o r p o p u l a t i o n : S t u d y
participants were eligible based on the
following criteria: 1) 18-45 years old; 2)
following menarche; 3) complete uterus
and at least one ovary; 4) all patients had
EMs.
Intervention: Acupuncture.
Comparator: Non-penetrating needles.
Study designs to be included: RCTs.
Eligibility criteria: Study participants were
eligible based on the following criteria: 1)
18-45 years old; 2) following menarche; 3)
complete uterus and at least one ovary; 4)
all patients had EMs.
Information sources: PubMed, EMBASE,
web of science, Cochrane Library, China
National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI),
Wan Fang Database (WanFang), sinomed
and Weipu Database for Chinese Technical
Periodicals (VIP).
Main outcome(s): Our study aimed to
determine whether acupuncture can
reduce the pain level (primary outcome),
improve different aspects of the quality of
life by Quality-of-life scales(he SF-36) and
the take-home-baby rate(secondary
outcome) for patients with EMs.
Quality assessment / Risk of bias analysis:
An assessment of bias risk was performed
b y t w o i n v e s t i g a t o r s , w i t h a n y
disagreements being resolved by three
investigators. Seven items were included in
this study, which were evaluated using the
RoB 2 tool.random sequence generation;
allocation concealment; blinding of
patients and doctors; blinding of outcome
assessment; incomplete and missing
outcome data; selective outcome data
reporting, other bias.
Strategy of data synthesis: The continuous
data will be measured by Mean difference
or Std Mean difference, 95% Confidence
interval and P values. The dichotomous
variables include will be estimated by
Relative risk, 95% Confidence interval and
P values. The chi-squared test and I2
statistic will be used to test the statistical
heterogeneity.
Subgroup analysis: 1)by age: patients were
stratified into two groups: mean age >35
years and mean age≤35 years. 2)by the
severity of endometriosis: patients were
stratified into three groups: I, II, or III
endometriosis.
Sensitivity analysis: Sensitivity analysis will
be performed by excluding studies with
high risk of bias and changing the
statistical model.
Country(ies) involved: China.
Other relevant information: Endometriosis
(EMs) is a chronic disease caused by active
endometrial tissue (glands and stroma)
growing outside the uterus.EMs is
characterized primarily by pain, and 87.7%
of patients experience dysmenorrhea,
71.3% experience non-menstrual pain in
the abdomen, 57.4% experience total
abdominal pain, 56.2% experience pain
during intercourse, 46.2% experience anal
pain, and 39.5% experience painful bowel
movement, which negatively in fluences
their mental and physical health,
and increases the social medical burde.
Modern medicine has a good analgesic and
lesion inhibition effect, but pelvic pain is
prone to relapses.
Keywords
Acupuncture, Pelvic Pain,
Endometriosis, systematic review, meta-
analysis.
INPLASY 2Xu et al. Inplasy protocol 202330006. doi:10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006
Xu et al. Inplasy protocol 202330006. doi:10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006 Downloaded from https://inplasy.com/inplasy-2023-3-0006/
Contributions of each author:
Author 1 - LINGXIA XU.
Email:
[email protected]
Author 2 - PENG SUN.
Email:
[email protected]
Author 3 - dongmei yan.
Email:
[email protected]
Author 4 - qing tu.
Email:
[email protected]
Author 5 - bin li.
Email:
[email protected]
INPLASY 3Xu et al. Inplasy protocol 202330006. doi:10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006
Xu et al. Inplasy protocol 202330006. doi:10.37766/inplasy2023.3.0006 Downloaded from https://inplasy.com/inplasy-2023-3-0006/