Effectiveness and safety of acupoint catgut embedding combined with Chinese herbal medicine in chronic urticaria: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Abstract

To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupoint catgut embedding (ACE) in combination with Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in treating chronic urticaria (CU). We thoroughly searched Embase, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wangfang database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP), and Chinese biomedical literature database (SinoMed) for relevant studies from inception until May 2022. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on ACE combined with CHM for CU were included. Literature search, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment were independently conducted by two authors. A total of 15 RCTs with 1065 participants were included in this review. Five trials reported that the combined therapy showed a higher total effective rate, and four trials reported that the combined therapy was associated with a lower level of serum immunoglobulin E. Furthermore, two, four, and four trials reported that the combined therapy was more effective in reducing itching degree, size, and number of wheals, respectively. The combined therapy was reported to be associated with a lower recurrence rate in three trials, and with a fewer adverse reaction rate in two trials. ACE in combination with CHM appears to be a safe and effective therapy for patients with CU. Given the relatively low quality of the included trials, these findings should be interpreted cautiously. Further high-quality RCTs are needed to confirm our findings.