Abstract
Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is one of the most common diseases in gynecology at present. Some clinical trials have reported the effects of moxibustion and confirmed temporal factors are the important elements influencing the efficacy of moxibustion. However, no systematic review has yet been conducted. In this study, we assessed the effects of moxibustion in patients with PD enrolled in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and the difference among different intervention times to start moxibustion. We extracted data for studies searched from 10 electronic databases and evaluated the methodological quality of the included studies. We discussed three outcomes: effective rate, pain remission, and the level of PGF2α in serum. Current clinical researches showed that, compared with nonmoxibustion treatments for PD, moxibustion leads to higher effective rate and lower level of PGF2α in serum. However, there was no difference in using moxibustion to treat PD at different intervention times. Based on the theory of Chinese medicine and the results of this study, choosing 5 ± 2 days before menstruation to start moxibustion can achieve good efficacy for PD patients. However, more high-quality RCTs are needed to confirm the conclusions.
Highlights
Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is one of the most common diseases in gynecology at present [1]
Studies will be included if they satisfy the following criteria: diagnosed with PD; all the parallel randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of moxibustion in which there were treatment group with pure moxa stick and control group with western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, or acupuncture were included; the outcomes were pain assessment (evaluation tool is visual analogue scale (VAS)), effective rate
Full-texts of 74 records were retrieved, and 64 articles were excluded with reasons listed as follows: participant was not PD (n = 1), the intervention was not pure moxa stick (n = 22), research was not RCT (n = 23), control group did not meet the inclusive criteria (n = 8) and duplicate publication (n = 4), clinical trials are ongoing (n = 2), and interventional time was not described (n = 4)
Summary
Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is one of the most common diseases in gynecology at present [1]. It has a strong impact on women’s lives, work, and study and represents a substantial public health burden [2,3,4]. It has two subcategories: primary and secondary dysmenorrhea. Studies reported the prevalence of PD was 20%–91% [5,6,7]; the women with severe pain accounted for 2%–29%. There is no definite cure for modern medicine at present; the main measure of PD is painkillers. More and more patients of PD are turning to complementary and alternative medicine, such as moxibustion
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