SynthesisFrontiers in public health2022
Clinical evidence of acupuncture and moxibustion for irritable bowel syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in Frontiers in public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Comparative efficacy and safety of Chinese medicine external therapies for diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness and safety of non-pharmacological therapies for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: a network meta-analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Pooled it
- The effect of acupuncture on quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Efficacy of acupuncture in refractory irritable bowel syndrome patients: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers of medicine · 2024Trial
- Similar Symptoms, Distinct Syndromes: Multi-modal Approach to the Patient with an IBD-IBS Overlap.Digestive diseases and sciences · 2026Review
- Pathogenesis and therapeutic strategies for irritable bowel syndrome: an integrated perspective from dynamic balance theory of Chinese medicine.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Cochrane reviews of acupuncture are dated, do not account for the specific effects of sham controls and likely underestimate the efficacy of acupuncture therapy.Integrative medicine research · 2025Review
- Self-administered active versus sham acupressure for diarrhea predominant irritable bowel syndrome: a nurse-led randomized clinical trial.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Recent updates in the therapeutic uses of Pembrolizumab: a brief narrative review.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2024Review
- The integration of complementary and integrative health and whole person health in gastrointestinal disorders: a narrative review.Translational gastroenterology and hepatology · 2024Review
- Traditional Chinese medicine for functional gastrointestinal disorders and inflammatory bowel disease: narrative review of the evidence and potential mechanisms involving the brain-gut axis.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Review
- Review
- Analgesic Efficacy of Acupuncture on Chronic Pelvic Pain: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Efficacy of different courses of acupuncture for diarrhea irritable bowel syndrome: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2023Article
- The efficacy and neural mechanism of acupuncture therapy in the treatment of visceral hypersensitivity in irritable bowel syndrome.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Research Trends of Acupuncture Therapy for Chronic Pain-Related Depression or Anxiety from 2003 to 2023: A Bibliometric Analysis.Journal of pain research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Acupuncture and moxibustion have been widely used in the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). But the evidence that acupuncture and moxibustion for IBS reduction of symptom severity and abdominal pain, and improvement of quality of life is scarce. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Scientific Journals Database (VIP), Wanfang Database, China Biomedical Literature Service System (SinoMed), and unpublished sources were searched from inception until June 30, 2022. The quality of RCTs was assessed with the Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias tool. The strength of the evidence was evaluated with the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation system (GRADE). Trial sequential analysis (TSA) was conducted to determine whether the participants in the included trials had reached optimal information size and whether the cumulative data was adequately powered to evaluate outcomes. Results: A total of 31 RCTs were included. Acupuncture helped reduce the severity of symptoms more than pharmaceutical drugs (MD, -35.45; 95% CI, -48.21 to -22.68; Conclusion: Acupuncture and/or moxibustion are beneficial for symptom severity, abdominal pain and quality of life in IBS. However, in sham control trials, acupuncture hasn't exhibited robust and stable evidence, and moxibustion's results show great heterogeneity. Hence, more rigorous sham control trials of acupuncture or moxibustion are necessary. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=262118, identifier CRD42021262118.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.