Clinical effect and safety of acupuncture in treatment of cardiac neurosis:a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

To systematically evaluate the clinical effect and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of cardiac neurosis. Chinese databases (including SinoMed, VIP, CNKI, and Wanfang Data) and English databases (including PubMed and The Cochrane Library) were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on acupuncture in the treatment of cardiac neurosis published up to March 2019. Two reviewers independently screened the literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of included studies, and then RevMan 5.3 was used to perform a meta-analysis. A total of 7 RCTs were included, with 491 patients with cardiac neurosis. The results of the meta-analysis showed that compared with the conventional western medicine group, the acupuncture group had a significantly higher total effective rate (risk ratio ［RR］=1.16, 95% CI［1.05,1.28］, P=0.005) and had significantly greater improvements in Hamilton Anxiety Scale score (mean difference ［MD］=-3.22, 95% CI［-6.05, -0.39］, P=0.03). There were no significant differences between the two groups in Hamilton Depression Scale score (MD=-1.92, 95% CI［-4.76, -0.91］, P=0.18)，traditional Chinese medicine symptom score (MD=-5.49, 95% CI［-11.55, 0.56］, P=0.08), somatization symptom score (MD=-0.91, 95% CI［-3.28, 1.46］, P=0.45), and adverse reactions (RR=0.67, 95% CI［0.26,1.78］, P=0.42). Acupuncture can alleviate the symptoms and is safe in the treatment of cardiac neurosis.